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THE  LIBRARY 
OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


AMERICAN 
PROBLEMS 


JOSEPH  A.  VANCE 

Pastor  of 

Hyde  Park  Presbyterian  Church 

Chicago 


CHICAGO 

THE  WINONA  PUBLISHING  CO. 

1904 


COPYRIGHT,    1904, 

BY 

THE  WINONA  PUBLISHING  CO. 

February. 


(p^^ 


TO  A  LITTLE  BOY, 

WHOSE  EARTHLY  LIFE,  BEGUN  IN  STURDI- 
NESS  AND  JOY,  WAS  ENDED  IN  A  FEW  SHORT 
DAYS  THAT  WERE  FULL  OF  PAIN,  BY  THE 
FOUL  AIR  OF  A  CITY  OF  CESSPOOLS  ;  BUT 
WHOSE  COMING  WAS  FROM  GOD,  AND  WHOSE 
TAKING  MADE  HEARTS  TENDERER  FOR  THE 
MANY  LITTLE  SUFFERERS  THAT  PERISH  TO- 
DAY AMID  THE  FILTH  AND  VICE  OF  MIS- 
GOVERNED CITIES, 
THIS  BOOK  IS  LOVINGLY  DEDICATED. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Foreword       ,         .         ,         .         ,          .  i i 

The   Negro         .....  21 

The  Labor  Question       .          .          .          .  55 

The  Liquor  Problem  .          ,          ,          ,  123 

Municipal  Government             .          ,          ,  171 

The  Problem  of  Vice           .          .          ,  209 

The  Double  Need           ....  247 


FOREWORD 


FOREWORD 

The  twentieth  century  has  brought  to 
the  American  people  four  great  problems. 

One  of  them  is  the  Negro.  The  ques- 
tion of  what  to  do  with  the  black  man  is 
no  realer  problem  nor  more  pressing  to-day 
than  it  was  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  It 
has  simply  become,  from  the  scattering  of 
the  Negro  over  our  entire  country,  more 
wide-spread.  The  people  of  the  North 
and  West  are  just  awakening  to  a  problem 
which  has  confronted  the  people  of  the 
South  for  over  a  generation.  The  problem 
has  now  become  national,  and  the  difficulty 
of  securing  justice  for  the  black  man  and 
of  making  the  black  man  worthy  of 
1 1 


FOREWORD 

companionship  because  worthful  in  our 
social  order,  is  now  recognized  by  both  the 
opinionated  Northern  philanthropist  and 
the  prejudiced  Southern  planter  as  simply 
enormous.  If  the  South  has  done  the 
Negro  a  gross  injustice  by  attempting  to 
condemn  him  forever  to  the  place  of  a 
servant  to  the  white  man,  the  North,  how- 
ever unintentionally,  has  put  a  most  ef- 
fective stumbling  block  in  his  way  by 
attempting  to  lift  him  from  fetish  worship 
and  savagery  with  lessons  in  Latin  and 
Greek,  and,  even  more,  by  diverting  him 
from  industry  and  thrift  with  visions  of 
social  and  political  prestige. 

The  Labor  question  has  locked  up  in  it 
the  industrial  future  of  America,  and  there- 
by her  international  position  in  general. 
The  utter  failure  of  those  directly  concerned 
to  deal  with  the  question  thus  far  from 
anything  like  a  Christian  point  of  view  has 

12 


FOREWORD 

made  the  whole  thing  largely  a  matter  of 
greed  and  grab. 

Our  industrial  world  is  in  sore  need  of 
the  spirit  of  human  brotherhood. 

The  Liquor  problem  has  been  our  de- 
spair; and,  unless  some  solution  is  found 
which  will  destroy  the  blighting  influence 
of  the  saloon,  and  meet  the  present  in- 
creasing evils  of  social  drinking,  the 
whiskey  barrel  and  the  beer  keg  may  one 
day  represent  our  nation  more  truly  than 
will  the  Stars  and  Stripes. 

The  rule  of  the  great  city  is  peculiarly 
a  twentieth  century  problem,  and  unless 
the  men  of  mature  business  experience  and 
moral  worth  are  put  at  its  head,  the  city  will 
become  in  our  national  life  as  great  a  curse 
as  Babylon  and  Rome  were  to  their  empires. 

In  addition  to  these  four,  another  prob- 
lem has  found  discussion  here.  Because 
of  its  bearing  on  all  the  rest,  and  because 
13 


FOREWORD 

its  solution  is  essential  to  right  dealing 
with  the  others,  the  problem  of  Vice  is 
here  considered. 

In  dealing  with  such  practical  questions 
as  these,  two  extreme  parties  are  always 
developed  ;  and  the  failure  to  unite  them 
on  it  is  the  doom  of  any  measure.  One 
of  them  is  the  idealist  and  the  other  is  the 
opportunist.  One  of  them  determines  his 
policies  by  the  achievements  of  to-day,  the 
other  by  those  of  a  century.  One  of  them 
is  Esau  bargaining  his  birthright  to-day 
for  a  mess  of  pottage,  and  the  other  is 
Jacob,  sacrificing  everything  to-day  that 
he  may  one  day  have  a  race  like  the  sands 
on  the  seashore  for  number.  The  oppor- 
tunist will  sacrifice  his  ideal  for  a  little 
betterment  of  his  present  condition ;  the 
idealest  will  take  nothing  unless  it  measures 
up  to  his  ideal.  Booker  T.  Washington,  in 
counseling  the  Negro  to  give  up  building 
H 


FOREWORD 

air  castles  and  social  and  political  ambitions, 
and  in  the  exercise  of  manual  labor,  and 
especially  the  ownership  and  tillage  of  the 
soil,  cultivate  industry,  thrift  and  economy, 
has  been  called  an  opportunist ;  while  such 
a  man  as  William  E.  B.  Du  Bois,  who  is 
perhaps  the  most  highly  educated  Negro 
in  America,  and  urges  all  black  men  to  be 
content  with  no  lower  culture  for  them- 
selves, is  without  doubt  a  thorough-going 
idealist. 

Especially  has  this  been  true  in  dealing 
with  the  Liquor  problem.  The  out-and- 
out  prohibitionist  has  been  often  fanatical 
in  denouncing  the  advocate  of  any  measure 
short  of  this,  even  calling  the  advocates  of 
high  license  "  murderers  "  ;  while  the  op- 
portunist would  take  any  betterment  of 
present  conditions  which  might  offer  itself 

Now,  manifestly,  in  any  successful  effort 
to  solve  these  problems,  these  two  parties 

IS 


FOREWORD 

must  find  a  place  where  they  can  work  to- 
gether. It  ought  not  to  be  difficult.  It 
means  simply  for  the  opportunist  to  keep 
ever  before  him  the  standard  of  the  idealist 
as  his  ultimate  aim,  and  it  means  for  the 
idealist  to  come  down  out  of  the  clouds, 
and  in  securing  any  betterment  of  present 
conditions,  take  the  first  step  in  a  series 
of  opportunists'  victories  it  may  be,  to- 
wards securing  his  highest  ideal. 

It  is  high  time  for  the  two  parties  to 
cease  their  bickerings.  It  is  one  of  the 
most  deplorable  things  about  our  national 
history  that  they  have  wrestled  with  each 
other  for  dictation  of  reform  policy,  while 
vice  was  corrupting  their  youth  and  boo- 
dlers  were  ruling  their  city.  When  the 
Puritan  awakened  to  the  fact  that  his  un- 
compromising idealism  was  joining  hands 
with  Tammany  to  make  New  York  a  city 
of  "graft  and  boodle,"  the  tiger  was  caged 
|6 


FOREWORD 

and  the  city  made  better.  It  is  often  said 
that  the  best  combination  in  religion  is  the 
backbone  of  a  Presbyterian  and  the  fervor 
of  a  Methodist.  Certainly  the  best  com- 
bination for  the  solution  of  our  problems 
is  a  union  of  the  opportunist  and  the 
idealist,  for  the  doer  of  deeds  and  the 
dreamer  of  dreams  to  join  hands  and  be- 
come another  Joseph. 

It  should  also  be  said  that  these  chapters 
have  been  prepared  for  the  layman.  The 
writer  will  be  glad  for  the  considerate 
reading  which  they  may  receive  from  any 
quarter ;  but  they  are  sent  forth  with  the 
hope  that  they  may  be  of  special  interest 
to  that  large  and  growing  class  of  conscien- 
tious and  intelligent  men  and  women  of 
our  nation  whose  busy  lives  do  not  permit  a  " 
detailed  study  of  these  problems,  but  with- 
out whose  personal  interest  and  intelligent 
help,  these  problems  can  never  be  solved. 
B  17 


THE  NEGRO 


"  This  is  a  people  robbed  and  spoiled ; 
they  are  all  of  them  snared  in  holes,  and  they 
are  hid  in  prison  houses ;  they  are  for  a  prey, 
and  none  delivereth ;  for  a  spoil,  and  none 
saith.  Restore.  Who  among  you  will  give 
ear  to  this?  Who  will  hearken  and  hear 
for  the  time  to  come  ?  " — Isaiah. 


AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 


CHAPTER  I 

THE   PROBLEM  OF  THE  NEGRO 

Unimpassioned  discussion  of  the  Negro 
problem  has  never  been  easy.  Race  an- 
tagonism has  always  affected  it;  for  whether 
it  was  in  equatorial  Africa  or  in  the  cotton 
fields  of  the  United  States,  the  Negro  and 
the  white  man  have  never  worked  well  as 
yoke-fellows.  Sectional  prejudice  has 
greatly  added  to  the  difficulty  with  us  in 
America;  for  about  no  question  that  has 
ever  arisen  in  our  land  has  feeling  been 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

more  bitter  than  about  the  act  of  the  North 
in  forcing  the  South  to  set  free  their  slaves. 
But  the  Civil  War  is  far  away,  and  its 
wounds  have  had  time  to  heal;  and  the 
white  man  has  no  reason  to  fear  Negro 
domination.  It  is  time  for  us  to  discuss 
calmly  and  reach  a  right  conclusion  about 
how  to  deal  with  the  ten  millions  of 
Negroes  which  are  a  part  of  our  body  na- 
tional. For  whether  they  shall  be  a  curse 
or  a  blessing  in  our  national  life  depends 
largely  on  the  patience  and  wisdom  with 
which  the  white  man  discusses  and  works 
out  the  Negro  problem. 

Because  the  majority  of  the  Negroes  are 
in  the  South,  it  has  been  common  to  re- 
gard the  problem  as  local ;  but  events  are 
ever  coming  to  our  attention  which  show 
it  to  be  distinctly  national.  Colorado  and 
Ohio  have  had  their  lynchings  for  the 
Negro's  nameless  but  decreasing  crime,  as 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NEGRO 

well  as  Virginia,  Mississippi  and  Texas. 
Illinois  and  New  York  have  had  their  race 
riots,  and  as  murderous  and  fierce  as  those 
of  Alabama  and  Georgia,  and  the  inborn 
race  antagonism  comes  to  the  surface  where- 
ever  white  and  black  men  meet  in  serious 
labor  rivalry,  whether  it  be  as  section 
hands  in  the  South,  or  domestic  serv- 
ants in  the  East,  or  mechanics  in  the 
West. 

It  is  also  a  national  question  in  the 
matter  of  responsibility.  The  New  Eng- 
land Puritan  and  the  Southern  Cavalier 
are  alike  responsible  for  both  the  Negro's 
presence  in  the  United  States  and  the  in- 
stitution of  slavery.  The  Southern  planter 
furnished  a  buyer  and  a  field  of  labor  in 
which  to  use  him,  and  the  New  Englander 
did  a  paying  business  as  his  importer  and 
jobber,  and  with  characteristic  business 
sense  the  latter  worked  off  all  of  his  goods 
23 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

before  President  Lincoln's  proclamation 
knocked  the  bottom  out  of  the  market. 

Facing  this  fact,  it  is  becoming  for  us  to 
cease  sectional  abuse,  and  share  as  a  nation 
the  responsibility  for  whatever  curse  or 
blessing  the  Negro  has  gotten  from  his 
slavery  to  the  Anglo-Saxon. 

Though  holding  him  in  slavery,  the 
American  cannot  be  charged  with  having 
been  utterly  indifferent  to  the  Negro's 
need.  Self-interest,  if  he  was  lacking  in 
the  milk  of  human  kindness,  led  the  slave- 
master  to  take  good  care  of  his  slave's 
body,  to  feed  him  on  wholesome  food,  to 
surround  him  with  good  sanitation,  to 
nurse  him  in  sickness.  Christian  philan- 
throphy  also  caused  the  master  to  give  the 
slave  in  many  cases  a  religious  nurture,  and 
the  fruit  of  this  work  was  apparent  in  the 
fact  that  when  the  Civil  War  closed  there 
were  scores  of  thousands  of  intelligent  and 
24 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NEGRO 

devoted  Christians  and  church  members 
among  the  slaves. 

When  the  conscience  of  our  nation  was 
awakened  to  the  wrong  of  slavery,  the 
Negro's  freedom  was  biDught  with  some  of 
our  people's  most  precious  life-blood. 

Then  an  attempt  was  made  to  atone  for 
the  wrong  of  slavery  by  honoring  him 
with  the  gift  of  the  franchise,  but  the  zeal 
was  mistaken,  and  bad  politics  throve  on 
the  venture  at  the  cost  of  the  Negro's 
added  degradation,  for  the  franchise  was  a 
responsibility  for  which  he  was  unprepared. 

In  the  stormy  years  that  followed,  some 
of  the  most  talented  and  cultured  men  and 
women  of  our  land  devoted  their  lives 
to  the  Negro's  uplifting,  and  millions  of 
dollars  have  been  spent  on  him  by  both 
North  and  South. 

How  have  the  efforts  fruited  ?  What 
has  been  the  answer  to  it  all  ?     Isolated 

25 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

cases  of  remarkable  ability,  like  Frederick 
Douglass,  Booker  T.  Washington,  Paul 
Lawrence  Dunbar,  William  Sheppard, 
William  E.  B.  Du  Bois  and  Bishop  Arnot 
have  arisen  ;  and  the  ambition  of  the  slug- 
gislh  race  has  been  stirred  in  many  quarters. 
But  after  all  these  years  the  Negro  is  still 
a  benighted  race,  intellectually  and  mor- 
ally, a  burden  instead  of  a  blessing  in  the 
economic  and  religious  world,  a.  menacing 
problem  in  our  national  life. 

It  was  a  pitiful  cry  that  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe  uttered  In  her  Uncle  T'oms  Cabin 
years  ago  for  the  helpless  slave  dragging 
his  ball  and  chain  under  the  slave-driver's 
whip ;  and  God  be  thanked  that  even  her 
over-colored  and  unjust  picture  was  used 
by  an  all-wise  Providence  to  sweep  the 
horrors  and  disgrace  of  human  slavery  from 
our  land.  Would  to  God  a  second  Har- 
riet Beecher  Stowe  were  raised  up,  to  utter, 
26 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NEGRO 

not  In  exaggeration,  but  even  justly,  the 
pitiful  cry  of  the  Negro's  need  to-day. 
For  there  are  not  a  few  things  that  would 
force  one  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Negro 
is  worse  off  to-day  in  America  than  when 
he  was  a  slave.  The  following  facts,  based 
on  the  United  States  census  for  1890, 
from  which  they  may  be  verified,  were  re- 
cently brought  out  in  two  notable  address- 
es. One  of  them  was  by  Dr.  W.  H. 
Wilcox,  a  native  of  Massachusetts,  a  pro- 
fessor in  Cornell  University,  and  at  that 
time  detailed  as  chief  statistician  of  the 
census  at  Washington,  before  the  Amer- 
ican Social  Science  Association,  at  Saratoga. 
The  other  was  by  Dr.  George  T,  Winston, 
a  native  of  North  Carolina,  formerly 
President  of  the  University  of  Texas,  and 
then  President  of  the  North  Carolina 
Agricultural  and  Mechanical  College,  be- 
fore the  National  Prison  Association,  of 
27 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

Austin,  Texas.     They  are  six  in  number 
and  are  full  of  significance  : 

1.  The  Negro  is  much  the  most  crim- 
inal element  of  our  population. 

2.  The  Negro  is  constantly  increasing 
in  criminality,  being  more  criminal  as  a 
free  man  than  he  was  as  a  slave,  and  one- 
third  more  criminal  in  1890  than  he  was 
in  1880. 

3.  More  than  seven-tenths  of  the  Negro 
criminals  are  under  thirty  years  of  age. 

4.  The  Negro  is  nearly  three  times  as 
criminal  in  the  Northeast  and  three  and 
one-half  times  as  criminal  in  th-e  North- 
west as  in  the  South. 

5.  The  Negro  is  three  times  as  criminal 
as  the  native  white  and  one  and  one-half 
times  as  criminal  as  the  foreign  white,  an 
element  which  is  largely  made  up  to-day 
of  the  scum  of  Europe  and  Asia. 

6.  The  Negroes  who  can  read  and  write 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NEGRO 

furnish  a  larger  percentage  of  criminals 
than  the  illiterate,  a  thing  which  is  true  of 
no  other  element  of  our  population,  or  of 
any  other  people  on  earth  of  whom  we 
have  criminal  statistics. 

However,  these  things  may  be  mitigated 
by  qualifications  which  may  occur  to  the 
reader,  it  is  plain  that  we  have  not 
made  a  very  brilliant  success  in  dealing 
with  the  Negro  in  the  past. 

THE  negro's  future 

What  is  to  be  the  negro's  future?  It 
has  been  pointed  out  repeatedly  by  histo- 
rians that  whenever  an  inferior  and  a 
superior  race  have  come  together,  one  of 
three  things  has  always  taken  place: 

I.  The  two  races  have  amalgamated. 
Illustrations  of  this  are  found  in  the  hybrid 
population  in  the  Philippine  Islands,  and 
in  the  half-breed  population  of  Mexico  and 
much  of  South  America. 

29 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

2.  Or,  as  a  second  alternative,  the 
stronger  has  reduced  the  weaker  to  political 
or  even  manual  slavery,  as  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  and  Teuton  have  done  with  the 
black  man  in  South  Africa  and  North 
America. 

3.  Or,  failing  both  of  these,  the  weaker 
race  has  become  extinct,  a  process  which 
is  actually  taking  place  before  aur  eyes 
in  the  gradual  extinction  of  the  Indian 
in  North  America,  and  of  the  native  in  the 
Hawaiian  Islands,  before  the  march  of  the 
white  man.  Which  of  these  shall  be  the 
fate  of  the  Negro  ?  Who  would  have  the 
first  ?  The  Negro  does  not  dare  to  ask 
it,  and  the  white  man  who  would  seek  it 
would  do  so  in  the  face  of  nature's  mani- 
fest laws,^  and  bring  down  on  him  from 
the  men  of  his  own  race  the  curse  of  a 


1  The  mulattoes,   or  Negroes  of  mixed   white  btood,  are  as  a 
class  weak  physically,  and  the  easiest  prey  to  disease. 

30 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NEGRO 

low-bred  renegade.  Must  It  be  one  of 
the  other  two  ?  We  have  declared  he 
shall  not  be  held  in  manual  slavery  in  the 
United  States.  Shall  we  hold  him  In  po- 
litical servitude  and  industrial  Impotence, 
or  let  vice  and  lynching  kill  him  out  ? 
Has  America  nothing  better  to  offer  the 
Negro  ?  By  the  grace  of  God  let  us  make 
a  new  bit  of  history  in  the  realm  of  anthro- 
pology. If  past  generations  have  been 
to  the  Negro  the  priest  and  Levite  who 
passed  by  on  the  other  side,  or  came  near 
only  to  add  another  bruise  to  his  hurts, 
may  not  this  generation  become  a  Good 
Samaritan  to  him  ?  That  is  Christianity's 
mission  to  the  Negro — to  the  universe — 
to  say,  not  that  the  future  shall  be  as  the 
past,  but  better ;  to  show  how  the  strong 
can  help  the  weak,  as  a  race  as  well  as  in 
individual  cases.  Is  It  not  possible,  and 
therefore  obligatory,  for  the  stronger  arm 
31 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

of  the  white  man  to  bring  to  the  Negro  in 
America,  not  political  subjection,  not  a 
weak  rival's  extinction,  but  such  paternal 
care  and  wise  help  to  self-help  as  will  lead 
him  to  grow  out  of  the  weakness  of  igno- 
rance and  vice  into  the  strength  of  virtue 
and  a  Christian  manhood  ? 

IS  THE  NEGRO  SAVABLE  ? 

But  can  this  be  done,  and  if  it  can,  how  ? 

Since  i860,  we  have  been  attempting  to 
do  it  by  giving  the  Negro  a  few  scraps 
of  social  privileges  and  a  classical  educa- 
tion. Proceeding  on  the  supposition  that 
the  Negro  was  simply  a  white  man  with  a 
black  skin,  it  was  argued  that  all  the  Negro 
needed  was  a  white  man's  higher  education 
and  social  privileges.  Those  who  knew 
the  Negro  most  intimately  were  quite 
skeptical  about  this,  but  many  monied 
philanthropists  insisted  on  it  strenuously, 
and  so  we  took  to  it  as  a  nation. 
32 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NEGRO 

The  effort  was  made  magnificently. 
According  to  the  reports  of  Commissicfner 
Harris  for  1896-7,  the  South  since  1870 
has  spent  one  hundred  million  dollars  of 
its  tax  money  on  the  Negro's  education, 
and  Northern  philanthropists  and  the 
United  States  government  have  together 
spent  an  equal  amount  since  1861.  But 
with  what  results  ?  We  reduced  the  Ne- 
gro's illiteracy,  but  we  allowed  him  to  in- 
crease in  crime,  and  he  remained  morally 
and  spiritually  a  benighted  Negro  still, 
"  an  eminently  religious  animal,"  to  use 
the  language  of  a  Northern  philanthropist, 
"utterly  devoid  of  morality."  In  his 
veins,  like  tainted  blood,  African  fetish 
worship  still  ran  riot,  and  he  could  well 
say  to  his  would-be  helpers  in  the  language 
of  Andres  to  Don  Quixote :  "  For  the 
love  of  God,  Signor  Knight- Errant,  if  ever 
you  meet  me  again,  though  you  see  me 
c  33 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

beaten  to  pieces,  do  not  come  to  my  help, 
but  leave  me  to  my  fate,  which  cannot  be 
so  bad  but  that  it  will  be  made  worse  by 
your  worship." 

SEND  THE  NEGRO  NORTH 

Another  plan  proposed  has  been  the 
distribution  of  the  Negroes  among  the 
Northern  States,  where,  it  was  claimed, 
there  was  less  race  antagonism,  where  the 
Negro  would  be  given  kinder  treatment 
in  social  life  and  find  a  better  chance  to 
get  an  education  or  work  at  his  trade.  It 
took  but  a  little  experience,  however,  to 
show  the  error  of  this  opinion.  Race  an- 
tagonism was  found  to  be  as  strong  in  the 
North  as  in  the  South,  when  the  Negroes 
began  to  come  in  large  numbers,  and  they 
were  more  thoroughly  shut  out  from  the 
organized  trades  than  in  the  South  they 
had  been  from  the  white  schools.  The 
fact  is,  the  South  will  always  be  the  home 
34 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NEGRO 

of  the  Negro.  It  suits  him  as  to  climate, 
and  it  alone  fosters  the  temperament  of  a 
master  who  can  be  patient  with  him  as  a 
laborer. 

Students  of  the  problem  are  generally 
agreed  that  there  is  no  future  for  the  Negro 
as  a  race  in  the  North.  Capital  employs 
him  only  when  it  can  get  nothing  else,  and 
housekeepers  find  it  difficult  to  bear  with 
the  Negro  servant's  untidiness  and  waste- 
fulness. In  the  South  almost  every  avenue 
to  labor  is  open  to  the  Negro,  from  that 
of  the  cotton  field  hand  to  the  skilled 
metal  worker  or  stone  mason;  but  the  door 
to  the  trades  is  tightly  shut  against  him 
throughout  the  North,  and  promises  to 
remain  so. 

COLONIZATION 

Another  remedy,  strenuously  advocated 
by  some,  is  foreign  colonization.      In  the 
presence  of  the  superior  talent  and  culture 
35 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

and  large  numbers  of  the  white  man,  the 
Negro,  it  has  been  argued,  is  cowed. 
Self-distrust  is  fostered  by  the  unequal 
competition,  and  ambition  for  bettering 
his  condition  is  choked  out.  The  Negro 
needs  a  field  of  his  own,  free  from  the 
white  man's  intervention  and  competition, 
where  he  would  have  full  field  to  govern 
and  develop  himself. 

A  notable  response  to  this  appeal  was 
the  colonization  scheme  in  Liberia,  the  re- 
sult of  which  was  prophesied  at  its  incep- 
tion by  those  most  intimately  acquainted 
with  the  Negro's  traits.  Instead  of  im- 
proving the  colonists,  there  has  been  a 
constant  tendency  toward  degeneration. 
It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  this 
colonization  scheme  brings  to  the  Negro 
just  what  he  had  for  centuries  in  his  life 
in  Africa;  and  when  he  was  placed  in  a 
land  of  his  own,  apart  from  the  white 
36 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NEGRO 

man's  influence,  he  began  at  once  to 
revert  to  the  original  type. 

Colonization  schemes,  whether  carried 
out  in  Liberia  or  attempted  on  a  smaller 
scale  in  the  swamps  of  Kansas  and  the 
deserted  residence  sections  of  our  large 
cities,  have  only  added  little  Africas  to  the 
Black  Continent  from  which  the  Negro 
first  came. 

The  colonization  of  the  Negro  in  some 
isolated  section  of  the  United  States,  has 
no  more  feasibility  nor  effectiveness  than 
his  colonization  abroad.  The  problem 
can  be  solved  by  none  of  these.  The 
same  law  which  keeps  water  from  rising 
above  its  source,  which  demands  the  help- 
ing hand  from  the  vegetable  to  lift  a 
mineral  into  the  vegetable  world,  and  the 
ministry  of  a  power  from  the  animal  world 
to  translate  a  vegetable  into  it,  calls  for  a 
helping  hand  from  the  white  man  if  the 
37 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

Negro  is  ever  to  be  freed  from  the 
shackles  of  vice  and  fetish  worship,  and 
become  the  peer  of  the  white  race. 

THE    SOLUTION    OF    THE    PROBLEM 

Our  first  step  in  solving  the  problem 
will  be  to  cease  theorizing  and  deal  with 
the  actual  condition.  Gail  Hamilton  said: 
"If  God  made  the  white  man  white,  the 
yellow  man  yellow,  and  the  black  man 
black,  He  intended  for  the  white  man  to 
remain  white,  and  the  yellow  man  to  re- 
main yellow,  and  the  black  man  to  remain 
black." 

We  may  not  agree  with  the  full  signifi- 
cance of  this  statement,  but  we  must 
recognize  that  in  dealing  with  the  Negro, 
we  are  not  dealing  with  a  white  man  with 
the  mere  difference  of  a  black  skin.  The 
black  man  is  a  Negro.  Back  of  this 
black  race  are  centuries  of  benighted  and 
barbarous    existence,    the     influences    of 

38 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NEGRO 

which  will  be  eliminated,  if  at  all,  little 
less  rapidly  than  his  present  degradation 
has  come.  The  Negro's  present  condi- 
tion is  not  the  result  of  his  slavery  to  the 
white  man.  That  was  a  vast  step  upward 
in  his  moral  and  intellectual  development 
over  what  preceded  it.  The  Negro's 
present  condition  roots  itself  back  through 
centuries  of  racial  degeneration  in  the 
jungles  of  Africa.  We  cannot  reverse 
this  process  in  a  day.  A  little  four  or 
eight  years  course  of  classical  education 
will  not  uproot  the  ancestral  inheritance 
of  a  millennium  of  barbarity.  The  Anglo- 
Saxon  himself  leaped  by  no  such  sudden- 
ness to  his  present  supremacy.  The  very 
skull  of  the  Negro  would  have  pointed  us 
to  this  lesson,  had  we  stopped  to  let  the 
scientist  show  us  the  thickness  of  it  and 
the  early  age  at  which  its  sutures  hardened. 
The  Negro  race  is  thick-headed  in  more 
39 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

ways  than  one;  and  this  sluggishness,  in 
reference  to  every  upward  step,  must  be 
kept  in  mind. 

Along  with  this  we  must  recognize  the 
Negro's  moral  condition.  No  race  on 
earth  is  so  susceptible  to  religious  emo- 
tion; but  no  race  on  earth  is  so  blind  to 
the  religious  obligations  of  morality. 

It  is  very  easy  for  a  newspaper  reporter 
to  visit  the  white  and  black  quarters  of  a 
city  like  New  Orleans,  and  because  on 
the  one  night  of  his  visit,  he  found  things 
so,  to  write  up  the  white  quarters  as  more 
vicious  than  the  black,  a  thing  which  was 
recently  done  in  a  Chicago  daily;  but  sta- 
tistics tell  a  very  different  tale;  and  sta- 
tistics gathered  by  government  experts 
are  certainly  more  to  be  rehed  on  than 
one  night's  observation  of  even  a  keen- 
eyed  reporter.  It  has  already  been 
pointed  out  that  the  United  States  statis- 
40 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NEGRO 

tics  show  that  the  Negro  is  more  criminal 
than  even  our  foreign-born  population, 
largely  made  up  today  of  the  worst  classes 
of  Europe  and  Asia.  An  examination  of 
the  actual  conditions  of  Negro  life  em- 
phasizes the  deductions  from  these  sta- 
tistics. Time  after  time,  judges  of 
criminal  courts  in  our  large  cities  have 
called  attention  to  the  great  menace  which 
the  young  Negroes  are  increasingly  be- 
coming to  the  peace  and  safety  of  the 
city.  The  greatest  cause  of  this  is  un- 
doubtedly the  lack  of  moral  nurture  in 
the  average  Negro  home.  The  immorality 
of  the  Negro  is  appalling.  Statistics 
show  that  twenty-five  per  cent,  of  the 
Negroes  born  in  Washington  city  are 
illegitimate.^ 

In    one    county    in    Mississippi    three 

^  Washington,  from  the  standpoint  of  social  and  educational 
privileges,  is  to  the  Negro  the  most  attractive  city  in  the  United 
States. 

41 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

hundred  marriage  licenses  were  issued 
in  one  year  for  the  whites.  Accord- 
ing to  the  population  over  twelve 
hundred  should  have  been  issued  for  the 
Negroes.  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  were 
but  three. 

Our  first  step  in  the  uplifting  of  the 
Negro  will  deal  with  this.  The  Negro 
girl  must  be  taught  to  value  her  chastity 
above  her  life,  and  the  Negro  man  to  die 
for  the  sanctity  of  his  conjugal  relation. 
The  one-room  log  cabin  must  give  way 
to  a  house  in  which  virtue  and  chastity 
will  be  served  by  the  hand  maidens  of 
privacy  and  cleanliness.  Then  ideas  of 
morality  will  have  a  chance;  and  as  pic- 
tures find  a  place  on  the  walls,  where 
privacy  has  gotten  a  chance  in  the  room, 
lime  and  paint  will  cleanse  and  beautify, 
and  the  rotten  couch  of  incest  will  be 
burned  on  the  funeral  pyre  of  disease 
42 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NEGRO 

and  filth.  For  so  long  as  Negro  children 
are  bred  and  fattened  as  hogs  in  a  pen, 
the  filth  of  the  swine  will  be  in  their 
nature  and  the  curse  of  their  immorality 
in  our  social  order.  Not  only  must  we 
take  the  Negro  as  he  is  if  we  are  to  do 
him  any  good,  but  we  must  consider  his 
environment.  Race  antagonism  handi- 
caps the  Negro  to-day  politically,  indus- 
trially, socially;  and  all  our  efforts  will  be 
futile  unless  this  inborn  hostility  between 
the  races  is  recognized.  The  Negro  will 
have  to  live  this  hostility  down,  and  the 
white  man  must  help  him  do  it. 

INDUSTRIAL     EDUCATION 

I.  In  view  of  these  facts,  the  first  thing 
which  the  Negro  needs  is  to  recognize  the 
worth  and  dignity  of  manual  labor.  The 
Negro  in  Africa  is  a  failure  because  he 
detests  manual  toil.  He  despises  the  use 
of  tools,  and  so  he  has  never  been  either 

43 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

the  inventor  or  user  of  them.  This 
antipathy  to  work  which  he  inherited 
from  his  African  ancestor  has  been  fos- 
tered in  the  American  Negro  by  the 
example  of  the  slave-owner.  Here  lies  the 
secret  of  the  Negro's  benighted  condition. 
He  has  never  been  as  a  race  the  inventor 
and  user  of  tools,  the  two  things  which 
have  ever  measured  human  progress. 

It  is  only  the  user  of  tools  who  minis- 
ters helpfully  to  his  own  and  his  brother's 
need.  Work  is  the  chisel  that  shapes 
character  and  sharpens  wit,  while  idleness 
is  the  mother  of  vice. 

The  Negro's  first  great  need,  then,  is 
to  take  his  place  in  the  army  of  toilers. 
To  make  out  of  himself  what  he  ought  to 
be,  to  put  a  capable  ministry  in  his  hand, 
to  sharpen  his  wit,  to  purify  his  heart, 
and  to  make  a  place  for  himself  in  our 
social  and  industrial  order,  where  he  will 

44 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NEGRO 

be  valued,  not  as  an  object  of  philan- 
thropy or  a  dummy  in  politics,  but  for 
what  he  is  worth,  the  Negro  must  go  to 
work. 

This  calls  for  two  things: 

(i.)  An  industrial  education  for  the  Ne- 
gro himself.  Hand  training  must  ever 
precede  intellectual  culture.  No  race  has 
ever  founded  universities  and  built  art 
galleries  and  mothered  poets  and  orators, 
till  it  had  learned  to  cut  down  trees  and 
till  the  soil  and  build  homes  and  sail 
ships.  Human  progress  has  ever  rooted 
itself  in  the  mastery  and  tillage  of  the 
soil. 

Our  nation  was  lavish  with  its  millions 
to  teach  the  Negro  Latin  and  Greek 
when  he  was  not  ready  for  it.  Experience 
has  shown  us  our  mistake.  The  blun- 
der, however  costly  to  the  white  man  and 
the  Negro,  will  have  been  well  made  if  it 
45 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

will  only  spur  us  to  a  like  expenditure  to 
teach  the  Negro  to  work  with  his  hands, 
to  give  him  an  industrial  education. 

To  teach  the  black  man  how  to  make 
brick  and  build  them  into  solid  and 
stately  walls,  how  to  forge  iron  and  build  it 
into  strong  and  labor-saving  machinery, 
how  to  till  the  soil  and  take  a  pride  in  its 
cultivation  and  ownership,  how  to  build  a 
house  and  create  in  it  a  home  where  love 
is  pure  and  the  conjugal  bed  inviolable, 
and  the  trust  of  childhood  sacred, — here 
lies  our  first  step  in  the  solution  of  the 
Negro  problem. 

(2.)  But  consider  the  second  one.  The 
Negro  must  be  taught  the  dignity  of 
labor  and  how  to  labor;  but  he  must  also 
be  given  a  chance  to  labor.  Open  to 
him  the  door  of  the  trades,  and  then  give 
him  a  chance  to  work  at  his  trade. 

Next  to  the  curse  of  an  immoral  home 
46 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NEGRO 

for  his  childhood  nurture,  the  Negro's 
greatest  handicap  to-day  meets  him  in 
the  labor  world.  The  black  man  is 
barred  from  most  of  the  trades  to-day  by 
the  ban  of  the  labor  union.  As  a  slave, 
the  Negro  was  allowed  to  work  at  any 
trade  for  which  he  showed  an  aptitude, 
but  even  the  places  of  freight-handler  and 
brick-mason  and  teamster  and  carpenter, 
as  well  as  the  crafts  of  finer  workmanship, 
are  closed  against  him  in  most  places  to- 
day by  the  ban  of  the  union.  It  is  an 
unrighteous  ban.  What  body  of  preach- 
ers would  forbid  a  capable  black  man 
from  preaching,  or  lawyers  from  his 
practicing  law,  or  physicians  from  his 
practicing  medicine. 

If  the  Negro's  first  step  to  enlightened 
manhood  is  to  get  and  live  by  an  indus- 
trial education,  the  white  men  of  the 
United  States  must  see  to  it  that  there  is 

47 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

written  for  him  a  full  bill  of  rights  in  the 
labor  world. 

HIGHER    EDUCATION 

2.  But  the  Negro  needs  more  than  an 
industrial  education  to  lift  him  to  peerage 
with  the  white  man.  This  will  but  lay 
the  foundation  of  his  progress.  As  Indus- 
trial education  proceeds,  multiplied  cases 
will  be  developed  that  are  worthy  of  some- 
thing higher.  These  must  have  an  open 
door  to  the  higher  education  for  which  they 
show  themselves  fitted.  It  would  be  as 
great  a  crime  to  blight  the  body  of  a  babe 
with  poison  as  to  kill  the  poetical  genius 
which  God  puts  in  a  Paul  Lawrence 
Dunbar  or  the  scholarly  ability  in  a 
Wilham  Du  Bois  or  the  masterly  quali- 
ties in  a  Booker  T.  Washington,  by  shut- 
ting against  them  the  door  of  the  college 
and  university. 

It  is  a  minor  matter  whether  the  blacks 
48 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NEGRO 

and  whites  go  to  the  same  educational 
institution,  but  it  is  a  vital  matter  that  the 
white  man  see  that  the  Negro  who  is 
capable  of  receiving  it  should  be  given 
opportunities  of  education  equal  to  those 
of  any  white  boy. 

The  same  sense  of  right  which  calls  for 
a  higher  education  for  the  Negro  who  is 
capable  of  receiving  it,  should  also  deter- 
mine the  matter  of  entrusting  the  Negro 
with  the  franchise,  and  a  host  of  other 
questions  of  a  similar  character.  If  it  was 
a  wrong  to  our  country  and  to  the  Negro 
himself  to  put  the  franchise  in  the  Negro's 
hands  before  he  was  ready  to  exercise  it,  it 
would  be  an  even  greater  wrong,  both  to  our 
country  and  the  Negro,  to  withhold  it  from 
him  when  he  is  capable  of  using  it  wisely. 

THE    BLACK    MAn's    RJELIGION 

3.  The  third  great  need  of  the  Negro 
deals  directly  with  his  religious  life.     The 
D  49 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

black  man  is  religious  by  nature,  but  his 
religion  spends  itself  in  emotionalism. 
The  Ten  Commandments  are  not  a  part 
of  his  creed  when  it  comes  to  daily  life. 
The  Negro  preacher,  who  is  always  the 
most  influential  leader  among  the  Negroes, 
is  not  seldom  notoriously  immoral.  This 
condition  of  things  must  be  changed  be- 
fore high  regard  for  morality  can  be  incul- 
cated in  the  Negro  as  a  race.  So  long  as 
their  religious  natures  are  swayed  by  men 
who  take  to  preaching  to  escape  the  cotton 
field,  for  which  they  are  better  fitted;  and 
so  long  as  many  Negro  preachers  live  no- 
toriously immoral  lives  and  even  use  their 
pastoral  relations  for  immoral  purposes, 
we  can  never  expect  to  inculcate  a  high 
moral  standard  in  the  race.  To  overcome 
this  difficulty,  the  white  denominations 
must  establish  and  control  the  schools  for 
training  Negro  preachers  and  themselves 
so 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NEGRO 

carefully  select  the  candidates  accepted. 
The  training  of  this  ministry  should  begin 
in  childhood,  and  lay  the  foundations  of 
industrial  education  for  the  classical  and 
theological,  so  that  when  they  go  forth  to 
preach,  they  will  be  capable  of  a  leader- 
ship such  as  the  race  needs. 

These  are  the  lines  along  which  both 
past  experience  and  the  voices  of  the  great 
leaders  of  the  race  itself  are  calling  us. 
Mutual  recrimination  and  sectional  dis- 
trust have  crippled  us  too  much  in  the 
past.  The  time  has  come  for  emotional- 
ism and  hysteria  and  sectional  abuse  to 
be  put  aside,  for  us  to  be  honest  and 
considerate  of  each  other,  and  fair  to  the 
Negro. 

As  the  years  of  this  new  century  roll  by, 

may  this  great  problem  of  to-day  find  a 

happy   and  full   solution;    and    may    the 

closing    years    of  this    twentieth    century 

51 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

find  a  generation  standing  in  our  places, 
to  whom  the  Negro  has  become  a  blessing 
instead  of  a  burden,  and  who  can  look 
back  and  see  in  us  a  generation  of  their 
forefathers  who  solved  one  of  the  century's 
hardest  problems  by  doing  a  Christian's 
duty  to  "  our  brother  in  black." 


52 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 


"  One  monster  there  is  in  this  worlds  the 

idle  man!  " 

Thomas  Carlyle. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    PROBLEM    OF    LABOR    AND    CAPITAL 

The  United  States  to-day  is  practically 
in  a  state  of  industrial  insurrection. 
Chicago,  with  its  enormous  foreign  and 
industrial  population,  giving  birth  to  some 
new  labor  trouble  every  morning,  and 
seldom  passing  through  a  week  which 
does  not  see  thousands  of  laborers  go  on 
a  "  strike,"  may  be  the  storm  center;  but 
from  every  quarter  of  our  land  come  tid- 
ings of  trouble,  often  acute,  between  the 
laborer  and  his  employer,  and  often  it  is 
accompanied  with  brutal  violence  and 
bloodshed.  Even  staid  old  Philadelphia 
55 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

has  joined  the  ranks;  for  there  but  recently 
nearly  one  hundred  thousand  textile 
workers  went  out  with  demands  which 
the  operators  declared  they  would  stay 
closed  for  years  before  they  would  grant. 
We  are  prone  to  think  of  this  situation  as 
peculiar  to  our  times,  and  as  largely  caused 
by  the  organization  of  Labor  unions  and 
the  fomenting  of  discontent  among  labor- 
ers by  walking  delegates,  who  do  it  to 
keep  an  easy  job. 

Whatever  may  be  the  cause,  industrial 
troubles  are  as  old  as  organized  Labor; 
and  organized  Labor  flourished  in  New 
Testament  days  under  Roman  rule,  as 
truly  as  now.  Artisans  of  that  day  when 
the  Apostle  Paul  was  a  tent-maker  were 
closely  affiliated  under  different  guilds, 
and  even  sat  together  in  their  places  of 
worship. 


56 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 
THE    INTERESTED    PARTIES 

The  solution  of  these  troubles,  it  may 
seem  at  first  glance,  should  be  left  to  the 
parties  directly  interested,  the  discon- 
tented laborer  and  the  capitalist  who 
employs  him.  But  consider  what 
interests  are  involved  and  what  parties  are 
affected  by  Labor  troubles. 

First,  they  tend  to  injure  the  particular 
industry  concerned.  A  strike  produced 
by  general  discontent  and  unrest  in  a 
given  industry  makes  outside  capital  wary 
of  investing  in  it,  decreases  the  output, 
and  often  introduces  the  consumer  of  it  to 
a  temporary  substitute  which  takes'  its 
place  permanently.  Without  doubt,  for 
example,  the  recent  strike  in  anthracite  coal 
mining  led  thousands  to  discontinue  per- 
manently the  use  of  anthracite  coal,  because 
necessity  led  them  to  a  good  substitute  in 
certain  grades  of  bituminous  coal. 
57 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

Second,  they  tend  to  injure  the  opera- 
tor of  the  industry.  His  capital  lies  idle 
and  unproductive.  His  trade  goes  to 
other  places.  His  working  force,  gath- 
ered in  many  cases  after  years  of  careful 
selection  and  training,  is  disintegrated, 
often  irrecoverably  scattered.  His  plant, 
erected  perhaps  at  enormous  expenditure, 
by  lying  idle  and  often  through  the  vio- 
lence of  strikers  and  their  sympathizers, 
suffers  a  ruinous  damage. 

Third,  they  tend  to  injure  the  laboring 
man.  His  loss  of  wages  is  always  the 
largest  financial  damage  connected  with  a 
strike;  and  the  burden  of  it  falls  most  on 
his  already  hard-worked  wife  and  hungry 
children.  If  the  housewives  went  on  a 
strike  when  the  Labor  unions  voted  one, 
and  if  the  picture  of  pale-faced  children, 
and  mortgaged  cottages  and  pawned  keep- 
sakes and  evicted  families  could  be  kept 

58 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

before  those  interested,  the  strike  would 
seldom  be  voted. 

But  worse  than  this  financial  loss,  and 
the  poverty  and  hunger  which  it  means, 
are  the  habits  of  discontent  and  dissipa- 
tion into  which  days  of  idleness  and 
brooding  over  real  or  fancied  wrongs 
cause  the  Laboring  man  to  drift. 

But  fourth,  and  worst,  because  most 
unjust  to  all,  it  plays  havoc  with  the 
interests  of  the  suffering  public.  Things 
have  reached  such  a  stage  that  we  are 
often  uncertain  whether  we  live  in  a  land 
of  peace  and  liberty  or  in  a  state  of  bar- 
barity. The  commonest  services  of 
everyday  life  are  often  absolutely  refused, 
or  done  with  such  a  surly  spirit  that  the 
day  is  robbed  of  its  serenity.  A  team- 
ster brings  a  box  to  the  home  of  two 
old  ladies  and  sets  it  on  the  doorstep. 
"  Will  you  please  set  it  inside  out  of  the 
59 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

wet  for  us,"  they  ask  him=  "No,  Miss, 
we  counts  this  a  delivery."  "But  will 
you  not  set  it  in  for  us?  We  have  no 
man  about  the  house  to  do  it."  "  Very 
sorry,  Miss,  but  the  union  don't  allow 
it." 

And  when  we  enquire  into  the  matter, 
we  find  that  when  Albert  Young,  the 
president  of  the  Teamsters'  union,  was  a 
teamster,  many  a  business  proprietor 
would  refuse  him  help  in  unloading  his 
boxes,  though  they  sometimes  weighed 
eight  hundred  pounds.  So  the  union  has 
put  up  its  guard,  and  the  public  must 
pay  for  it. 

It  has  come  to  such  a  pass  in  Chicago, 
for  example,  that  one  cannot  be  sure 
of  a  clean  shirt  for  the  next  day  or  of 
tidy  bed-linen  for  the  night;  or  whether 
the  butcher  can  send  you  the  meat  for 
dinner  or  the  cook  be  found  in  the 
60 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

kitchen  and  the  gas  in  the  range  to 
cook  it;  when  the  mother  cannot  be  sure 
her  boy  will  get  the  Thanksgiving  or 
Christmas  box  from  home  because  it 
must  await  the  uncertain  ministry  of  the 
freight  handlers. 

Thus  Labor  troubles  have  involved  all 
of  us,  and  a  solution  of  them  is  not  only 
of  universal  interest  but  is  something 
which  an  outraged  and  long-abused  pub- 
lic is  beginning  to  demand. 

THE    SEARCH    FOR    A    SOLUTION 

Where  shall  we  find  a  solution  for  this 
problem?  What  good  angel  of  light  will 
take  us  by  the  hand  and  lead  us  out  of 
this  valley  of  violence  and  hatred,  of 
strife  and  bloodshed,  into  the  fair  fields  of 
industry  and  peace  and  fraternal  pros- 
perity? 

The  answer  will  be  found  in  a  word  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Our  industrial  world 
6i 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

must  take  up  the  cry  of  our  religious 
thinkers,  "Back  to  Christ!"  Sitting  at 
the  feet  of  Him  who  spoke  with  authority 
to  Gadarene  devils  and  stilled  with  a  word 
the  raging  of  the  sea,  we  shall  hear  a  mes- 
sage, sufficient  in  wisdom  and  power  and 
eminently  just  and  fair,  for  our  troubled 
world  of  industry. 

This  is  the  message  of  Christ,  the  King 
of  the  Labor  world: 

"As  YE  WOULD  THAT  MEN  SHOUD  DO 
TO    YOU,  DO    YE  ALSO  TO  THEM  LIKEWISE." 

This  is  His  word  for  both  laborer  and 
capitalist.  Put  yourself  in  the  other 
man's  place,  and  treat  him  as  you  would 
like  for  him  to  treat  you. 

Capitalist,  think  of  yourself  as  penni- 
less, and  dependent  on  your  daily  wage 
for  your  own  and  your  children's  bread; 
and  treat  your  laborer  as  you  would  wish 
to  be  treated. 

62 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

Laboring  man,  put  yourself  in  the 
place  of  your  employer.  Try  to  realize 
the  burden  of  responsibility  that  presses 
on  the  head  of  a  great  industry;  of  how 
he  must  make  profit  for  investors,  give 
employment  to  his  laborers,  make  a  suc- 
cess of  his  business;  and  be  fair.  Deal 
with  him  as  you  would  be  dealt  by. 

THE    MESSAGE    OF    THE    LABOR    KING 

In  the  light  of  this  great  sociological 
principle  of  the  Carpenter  of  Nazareth, 
let  us  face  our  present  industrial  condition 
and  draw  up  a  "Bill  of  Rights"  and  a 
"Bill  of  Wrongs." 

THE    BILL    OF    RIGHTS 

If  this  is  a  free  country,  and  we  are  a 
Christian  people,  the  following  rights 
must  be  accorded: 

I.  The  right  of  every  man  to  earn  his 
living  by  honest  labor  and  of  every  em- 
ployer to  get  his  laborers  for  an  honest 
63 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

wage,  regardless  of  their  relation  to   other 
organizations. 

2.  The  right  of  thrift,  industry,  skill, 
integrity  to  rise  above  shiftlessness,  waste, 
dishonesty,  intemperance.  We  recognize 
as  a  good  law  of  nature  that  a  sound  tree 
has  a  better  right  to  live  than  a  rotten 
one,  that  a  diseased  body  has  a  right  to 
less  of  life  than  a  sound  one.  It  is  but 
the  same  law  in  another  sphere  that  de- 
mands for  the  honest,  hard  working, 
frugal  laborer  the  right  to  rise  in  the  scale 
of  wages  and  being  above  those  who  are 
ruled  by  the  opposite  vices. 

3.  The  right  of  laborers  to  organize  for 
their  mutual  profit,  and  the  right  of  cap- 
italists to  do  the  same,  provided  they 
preserve  a  due  regard  for  the  rights  of 
each  other  and  of  the  outside  public. 

4.  The  right  of  laborers  to  refuse  to 
work  for  an  employer  who  will  not  com- 

64 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

ply  with  reasonable  demands  as  to  hours, 
wages  and  sanitary  conditions;  and  their 
right,  if  they  so  desire,  to  do  this  con- 
certedly. 

5.  The  right  of  every  owner  of  a  busi- 
ness to  conduct  it  as  he  sees  fit,  within 
the  laws  of  the  state. 

6.  The  right  of  those  who  participate 
in  making  profits  to  share  in  their  divis- 
ion. 

THE    BILL    OF    WRONGS 

On  the  other  hand,  if  this  is  a  free 
country  and  we  are  a  Christian  people,  the 
following  things  are  wrong: 

I.  It  is  wrong  to  refuse  to  let  another 
man  work  under  certain  conditions  because 
you  are  unwilling  to  work  there  yourself. 
But  this  recognizes  the  right  of  the  "strike- 
breaker," it  will  at  once  be  objected,  the 
most  execrated  of  all  things  to  the  Labor 
union.  Without  a  doubt;  but  consider 
E  65 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

what  it  means.  It  is  only  the  right  of 
every  man  to  go  into  the  market  of  the 
world  and  get  his  labor  or  his  laborers,  as 
we  claim  the  right  to  go  into  a  town 
market  and  buy  where  we  choose  our 
meats  and  vegetables.  The  opposite  posi- 
tion nullifies  all  liberty.  Let  us  illustrate 
it  with  the  case  of  a  church  seeking  a 
pastor.  The  church  calls  a  man,  but  he 
demands  a  salary  of  ten  thousand  dollars. 
The  preachers  are  organized  into  a  union. 
The  church  says,  "We  cannot  pay  that 
salary;  it  strains  us  to  pay  less  than  half 
that  much."  The  Preacher's  Union 
answers,  "You  must  take  this  man  and 
pay  him  what  we  say,  or  you  can  have  no 
preacher  at  all."  Would  we  put  up  with 
that  method  in  our  ecclesiastical  affairs? 

Or  suppose  the  physicians  had  a  union, 
and  when  your  child  fell  desperately  ill, 
the  physician  to  whom  you  applied,  would 
66 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

answer,  "You  must  pay  me  fifty  dollars 
or  I  will  not  go  to  see  your  child?"  and 
suppose  the  Physicians'  Union  should 
say,  "  You  must  take  this  doctor  and  meet 
his  price,  or  go  without  a  doctor."  Would 
we  put  up  with  such  conduct  in  our 
physicians? 

The  wrong  is  no  less  iniquitous  when 
it  comes  to  the  matter  of  Labor. 

Turn  the  thing  around,  say  that  the 
employer  has  the  right  to  set  arbitrarily 
the  price  of  labor  and  say  to  the  laboring 
man,  "You  must  work  for  this  price  and 
for  me  or  you  cannot  work  at  any  price 
for  any  other  employer?  "  That  would  be 
confiscation  of  Labor.  The  other  is  con- 
fiscation of  capital;  and  one  is  as  bad  as 
the  other. 

2.  It  is  wrong  for  an  employer  to  dis- 
criminate against  a  laborer  simply  because 
he  is  a  member  of  a  Labor  union.  Sub- 
67 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

stitute  racial  affinity  or  the  color  of  his  skin 
for  membership  in  the  union,  and  the 
wrong  of  it  at  once  appears. 

Of  course,  if  it  can  be  shown  that  the 
influence  of  the  union  militates  against 
his  efficiency  as  a  workman,  it  becomes 
another  matter.  But  personal  character 
and  ability  should  determine  a  workman's 
acceptability  to  an  employer,  and  nothing 
else. 

3.  It  is  wrong  to  demand  that  the  in- 
dustrious and  skilled  worker  shall  get  no 
better  wages  from  his  employer  and  no 
better  appreciation  from  his  union,  than 
the  worthless  and  lazy,  or  even  the  indif- 
ferent. 

4.  It  is  wrong  to  seek  to  injure  the 
person  or  to  persuade  others  to  damage 
the  business  or  property  of  a  man  because 
he  employs  organized  or  unorganized 
Labor.     The  union  man  who  tries  to  in- 

68 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

jure  the  non-union  plant  by  boycott  or 
otherwise  is  sinning  against  the  brother- 
hood of  man  and  the  justice  of  God. 
Turn  it  around.  Suppose  that  most 
plants  and  their  laborers  were  non-union, 
and  the  non-union  majority  tried  to  des- 
troy the  union  plant  and  its  workmen, 
would  it  be  right? 

5.  It  is  wrong  to  withhold  from  Labor 
a  fair  proportion  of  the  profits  which  it 
helps  to  make.  It  is  confessedly  because 
of  real  or  fancied  injustice  here  that  most 
strikes  occur.  They  abound  in  periods 
of  prosperity  when  the  Laborer  feels  he  is 
not  getting  his  share  of  the  increased 
profits. 

6.  It  is  wrong  to  set  wages  above  either 
work  or  character.     The  laborer  who  is  ■ 
so  engrossed  with  the  amount  of  his  wage 
that  he  loses  pride  in  the  quality  of  his 
work,  and  the  employer  who  regards  and 

69 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

treats  his  laborers  only  as  so  many 
"hands,"  so  much  "man  power"  which 
he  buys,  are  both  wrong. 

Few  things  are  more  needed  in  the 
Labor  world  than  a  better  understanding 
and  a  more  intimate  relation  between  the 
laborer  and  his  employer.  At  present 
they  are  arrayed  against  each  other,  in 
many  cases  in  bitter  hostility.  They  live 
in  different  localities,  have  no  social  or 
religious  contact,  cherish  no  interest  in 
each  other's  personal  welfare.  There  is 
usually  to  be  found  a  striking  contrast  be- 
tween the  feeling  of  the  manual  laborers 
of  an  industry  and  that  of  the  clerical  force 
for  the  heads  of  the  concern.  The  latter 
speak  of  it  as  "  our  firm,"  and  take  more 
or  less  pride  in  its  success  and  reputation. 
The  laboring  men  look  on  it,  often  with 
bitterness,  as  a  vampire  which  is  sucking 
out  their  life-blood.  It  is  a  common 
70 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

thing  for  the  clerical  force  in  some  of  the 
big  packing  houses  of  Chicago  voluntarily 
to  take  the  places  of  the  lusty  packers 
who  have  gone  on  a  strike,  to  help  their 
house  get  out  some  pressing  orders.  The 
difference  of  feeling  has  invariably  been 
found  to  be  due  to  the  difference  in  the 
personal  relations  which  the  heads  of  the 
firm  sustain  towards  the  two  classes. 

TWO    INDICTMENTS 

If  these  "rights"  and  "wrongs"  be 
recognized  as  a  basis  on  which  to  proceed, 
we  must  draw  up  two  indictments. 

First  of  all,  we  must  indict  the  em- 
ployer, and  there  will  be  three  counts  in 
his  indictment. 

I.  For  discriminating  against  union 
Labor.  Few  business  concerns  have 
failed  to  do  it,  until  the  union  became  so 
strong  that  they  had  to  recognize  it.  It 
is  notorious  that  for  years  the  union  man 
71 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

was  the  special  object  of  his  employer's 
hostility,  and  the  organization  of  the 
laborers  of  an  industry  was  fought  by  the 
heads  of  it,  at  times  by  measures  that 
were  drastic.  This  hostility  must  be  put 
aside  if  the  employer  is  ever  to  win  the 
confidence  of  Labor.  The  most  ignorant 
laborer  has  found  that  there  is  strength  in 
union,  and  he  can  see  no  other  purpose 
in  the  employer's  hostility  to  the  union 
than  to  "divide  and  destroy." 

2.  For  withholding  from  their  laborers, 
until  held  up  for  it  by  a  threatened  or 
actual  strike,  a  fair  share  in  their  increased 
profits.  Wages  have  been  raised,  as  a 
rule,  only  when  demanded  by  the  wage- 
earners,  and  often  after  long  controversies 
and  strikes.  There  have  been  some 
notable  exceptions  to  this;  and  it  is  strange 
that  the  influence  on  his  workmen  of  an 
employer  voluntarily  increasing  their 
72 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

wages  has  not  caused  more  employers  to 
win  their  workmen's  confidence  and 
esteem  this  way. 

3.  They  have  uniformly  and  woefully 
failed  to  take  any  personal  interest  in  the 
social  and  religious  betterment  of  their 
employees.  There  have  been  some  no- 
table exceptions  to  this.  Chief  among 
which  has  been  the  work  of  many  rail- 
roads in  providing  quarters  for  the  work 
of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association 
among  their  employees.  The  ease  with 
which  arbitration  of  disputes  became  suc- 
cessful is  so  co-existent  with  this  move- 
ment as  to  give  to  it  the  credit,  as  much 
as  to  that  splendid  leader  among  railroad 
men,  Mr.  P.  M.  Arthur. 

Many  employers  fail  of  their  ditty  here 

simply  because  they  do  not  know  how  to 

go  about  it,  or  have  seen  the  disastrous 

failure  of  some  who  have  attempted  it  in 

73 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

a  blundering,  patronizing  way.  But  it 
can  be  done,  and  most  successfully,  as 
some  notable  instances  will  show. 

One  of  the  most  famous  of  these  is  con- 
nected with  the  Krupp  foundries,  at 
Essen,  in  Rhenish,  Prussia.  The  erec- 
tion of  model  dwellings  for  the  employees 
began  as  early  as  1861,  and  with  the  fund 
of  two  and  one-half  per  cent,  which  has 
been  their  net  income,  other  buildings  are 
being  constantly  erected.  The  co-opera- 
tive store  is  managed  by  the  firm,  but  the 
profits  are  distributed  among  the  pur- 
chasers in  proportion  to  their  purchases. 
The  unmarried  employees  have  a  board- 
ing establishment  for  their  convenience, 
and  the  health  of  the  workmen  is  cared 
for  with  a  hospital,  a  bath-house,  and  a 
corps  of  regularly  employed  physicians. 

A    notable    instance    of  the    employer 
winning  his  workmen's  confidence  by  his 
7+ 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

personal  interest  in  them  may  be  found 
in  our  own  country  in  the  National  Cash 
Register  Factory,  at  Dayton,  Ohio.  The 
moving  motive  in  the  matter  was  to  make 
such  conditions  as  would  produce  the  very 
best  type  of  workmen.  The  men  were 
put  on  a  day  of  nine  and  one-half  hours, 
but  the  women's  day  was  only  eight  hours, 
not  only  allowing  for  the  woman's  lesser 
endurance,  but  enabling  them  to  avoid 
the  crowd  of  men  in  reaching  and  leaving 
the  factory.  The  women  were  also  al- 
lowed a  recess  of  ten  minutes  in  the  morn- 
ing and  afternoon.  It  is  not  surprising  to 
find  that  the  girls  who  work  in  the  factory 
are  of  a  very  intelligent  type,  and  ad- 
ditions are  now  made  to  the  working  force 
only  from  graduates  of  the  High  School. 
No  attempt  is  made  to  control  the  dwell- 
ing-places of  the  workmen,  but  great 
stress  is  put  on  cleanliness.  Even  the  work- 
75 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

rooms  of  the  foundry  are  made  attractive. 
Not  only  are  free  baths  provided,  but 
each  employee  is  allowed  twenty  minutes 
out  of  the  company's  time  to  make  use  of 
them.  The  company  also  provides  a 
library  and  reading  room,  a  lunchroom 
and  bicycle  sheds,  and  a  rest  room  for  the 
girls.  The  beautifying  of  the  homes  is 
most  effectively  accomplished  by  offering 
two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  in  prizes  for 
the  best  front  yards,  the  best  back  yards, 
the  finest  examples  of  vine-planting,  and 
the  best  vegetable  garden  which  has  been 
cultivated  by  a  boy.  Special  instructions 
given  in  cooking  and  domestic  science, 
and  literary,  musical,  and  social  organiza- 
tions are  also  carried  on  by  both  the  men 
and  women  of  the  factory.  In  spite  of  all 
these  things,  the  operatives  organized 
themselves,  and  Mr.  Patterson  found  a 
strike  on  his  hands.  From  their  point  of 
76 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

view,  these  things  were  of  minor  impor- 
tance. Mr.  Patterson  calmly  considered 
the  matter,  and  instead  of  growing  sore 
over  the  ingratitude  of  his  workmen,  and 
entering  into  a  stubborn  fight  with  them, 
he  recognized  that  the  Labor  union  was 
inevitable  and  went  about  to  make  the 
best  of  it.  This  he  did  by  creating  a 
Labor  department  and  committing  to  it 
the  investigation  of  any  complaints  from 
the  men,  and  to  take  up  with  the  work- 
men all  such  subjects  as  the  restriction  of 
output,  the  discharge  of  inefficient  work- 
men, unjust  wage  demands,  and  opposi- 
tion to  improved  machinery.  The  result 
of  the  whole  has  been  such  an  increase  of 
mutual  confidence  and  common  interest 
between  the  employer  and  his  workmen 
as  most  heartily  to  commend  his  spirit 
and  method. 


n 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 
THE    PULLMAN    FIASCO 

In  Striking  contrast  with  this  experience 
of  Mr.  Patterson  at  Dayton,  was  the  case 
of  Mr.  Pullman  in  the  establishment  of 
his  town  near  Chicago.  There,  on  a  plat 
of  five  hundred  acres,  the  sleeping  car 
magnate  erected  not  only  the  Pullman 
shops,  but  a  hotel,  churches,  a  library,  an 
arcade  and  brick  tenement  houses.  The 
company  also  provided  for  the  employees 
a  water  supply,  a  system  of  sewers,  and 
even  an  athletic  field.  When,  in  spite  of 
all  this,  the  residents  of  "Pullman"  voted 
annexation  to  Chicago  and  went  out  on 
their  famous  strike,  Mr.  Pullman 
thought  them  grossly  ungrateful,  and  the 
public  was  pointed  to  the  town  as  another 
instance  of  the  futility  of  an  employer  at- 
tempting to  win  the  devotion  and  confi- 
dence of  his  workmen  by  kindness. 

But  an  investigation  showed  up  the 
78 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

matter  in  a  different  light.  It  was  found 
that  the  company  always  charged  the  men 
the  ruling  prices  for  the  use  of  any  privi- 
leges, often  a  little  more;  the  very  streets 
of  the  town  were  owned  in  fee  simple  by 
the  company;  many  workmen  preferred 
to  live  outside  of  the  town  to  being 
under  the  iron  hand  of  the  company  in 
one  of  its  tenement  houses;  and  even  the 
churches  and  parsonages  were  found  lying 
idle  because  worshippers  were  not  found 
who  were  willing  to  pay  the  rental.  The 
only  apparent  philanthropy  about  the 
matter,  was  when  the  state  authorities 
issued  a  mandate  for  the  Pullman  Com- 
pany to  go  out  of  the  real  estate  business, 
a  thing  which  is  now  in  course  of  execution. 
With  these  two  object  lessons  before 
us,  it  is  very  easy  for  the  average  em- 
ployer who  wishes  to  win  the  conjfidence 
and  devotion  of  his  workmen  by  personal 

79 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

Interest  in  their  welfare  and  betterment,  to 
ponder  the  ways  of  Mr.  Patterson  and 
Mr.  Pullman  and  learn  how. 

THE    INDICTMENT    AGAINST    LABOR 

But  in  the  majestic  presence  of  these 
rights  and  wrongs,  we  must  also  draw  up 
an  indictment  against  the  Labor  organiza- 
tion; and  there  will  be  three  counts  in  it: 

First,  for  its  attempt  to  prevent  a 
non-union  laborer  from  working  under 
conditions  which  the  union  refuses.  The 
violence  and  even  the  lawless  brutality  of 
many  of  these  attempts  are  not  only  the 
greatest  reproach  to  the  Labor  organiza- 
tion, but  one  of  the  most  disgraceful 
chapters  in  our  national  history. 

MR.    GOMPERS'    BLARNEY 

Samuel  Gompers,  President  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  in  a  recent 
address  at  Buffalo,  New  Yo'rk,  made  this 
declaration: 

80 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

"Labor  organizations  are  conducted 
upon  as  high  and  as  honorable  a  plane  of 
morality  and  justice  and  fair  dealing  and 
equity  as  are  any  institutions  on  earth,  and 
1  do  not  except  any  one." 

The  remoteness  of  this  statement  from 
the  truth  indicates  either  a  stupidity  un- 
paralleled or  a  mendacity  that  is  profes- 
sional. There  is  need  to  cite  but  a  few 
instances  to  justify  the  sharpness  of  this 
characterization.  Mr.  George  Mulberry, 
Third  Vice  President  of  the  International 
Machinists^  Union^  closes  his  December 
report  in  the  Journal  of  January,  1903, 
with  the  following  significant  words  about 
their  strike  against  the  Union  Pacific 
Railway: 

"I  wish  to  state  that  this  climate  is  not 
productive  to  the  health  o>f  scabs,  as  quite 
a  few  have  been  sent  back  home  very  ill." 

The  nature    of  this   illness  is  learned 

F  81 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

when  we  turn  to  the  report  of  the  fourth 
vice-president  of  this  same  union,  dated 
at  Omaha,  December  13,  1902,  in  which 
he  says: 

"The  hospitals  are  full  of  scabs  that 
got  hurt  at  work  and  in  fights  between 
themselves.  Four  have  died  at  Cheyenne, 
and  one  was  killed  at  Omaha  in  a  fight, 
while  three  or  four  others  have  been  killed 
in  the  shop.  The  picket  duty  is  done  in 
a  very  systematic  manner,  and  we  are  keep- 
ing tab  on  the  scabs  day  and  night.  There 
is  not  a  scab  on  the  line  that  is  not  known 
to  us  now.  The  professionals  are  the 
only  ones  that  st?iy ^and you  can  do  only  one 
thing  with  them,^^ 

One  of  the  commonest  examples  of  this 
brutality  of  Labor  unions  was  brought  be- 
fore the  public  in  the  trial  and  conviction 
of  the  executive  board  and  business  agent 
of  Brass  Molders'  Local,  No.  86,  of 
82 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

Chicago.  "These  officers  employed 
thugs  to  beat  up,  incapacitate,  assault  and 
murder  men  who  dared  assert  their  right 
to  work  upon  the  terms  the.y  pleased. 
The  compensation  for  this  brutal  service 
ranged  from  three  dollars  to  seventy-five 
dollars,  according  to  the  degree  of  injury 
done;  and  the  money  with  which  to  pay 
the  heavy  fines  and  costs  imposed  upon 
them  is  raised  among  the  unions  of 
Chicago." 

Another  example  of  this  brutality  was  a 
murderous  assault  which  was  made  on 
Calvin  Phoebus  and  his  son,  at  Dayton, 
Ohio,  by  members  of  the  iron  molders' 
local.  "Five  men,  whose  names  the  cir- 
cumstances in  the  case  show  clearly  were 
drawn  by  lot,  hired  a  team  of  horses  and  a 
furniture  van,  and  at  six  o'clock  in  the 
morning  proceeded  to  the  Phoebus  home, 
just  outside  the  city  limits,  backed  the  van 
83 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

up  to  the  curb  in  front  of  the  next  house; 
and  when  the  father  and  son  started  for 
work,  these  five  human  devils  jumped 
from  the  van  in  which  they  were  secreted 
and  pounced  upon  the  two  old  and  faith- 
ful employees  of  the  Callahan  Company, 
beating  them  nearly  to  death.  Detection 
resulted  from  one  of  the  villains  being 
shot  by  the  elder  Phoebus."  These  men 
were  tried  and  convicted  in  the  Court  of 
Common  Pleas.  They  were  sentenced  to 
heavy  fines  and  costs,  and  to  four  months' 
imprisonment  in  the  workhouse.  The 
fines  were  paid  by  their  union,  a  part  of 
the  high  and  honorable  constituency  of 
Mr.  Gompers.  The  chief  capital  of  a 
Labor  union  is  pubhc  sympathy;  and  up 
to  recent  months,  the  sympathy  of  the 
general  pubhc  has  undoubtedly  been  on 
their  side.  But  these  lawless  methods 
have  about  murdered  it;  for  however 
84 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

violently  the  Labor  union  may  denounce 
the  "scab"  and  ostracize  his  family  and 
hoot  his  children  and  even  take  his  life, 
the  public  recognizes  not  only  his  right 
to  existence,  but  is  going,  in  some  way  or 
other,  to  safe-guard  his  person  and  secure 
to  him  his  rights.  Unless  such  insincere 
utterances  as  these  of  Mr.  Gompers  are 
replaced  by  a  thorough-going  rectification 
of  Labor  union  methods  in  dealing  with 
non-union  plants  and  men,  the  sympathy 
of  a  public,  already  sorely  tried,  will  be 
utterly  destroyed;  and  worst  of  all,  the 
cause  of  labor  itself  will  receive  an  incur- 
able hurt. 

2.  The  second  count  in  this  indictment 
against  Labor  is  for  its  attempt  to  injure 
not  only  the  person  of  the  non-union 
laborer  but  the  business  and  property  of 
the  employer.  The  embodiment  of  this 
attempt  is  the  boycott,  a  thing  of  devilish 
85 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

origin/  and  justly  denounced  to-day  by 
the  fair  minded  public  at  large.  But 
wherever  you  find  the  Labor  union  to- 
day, you  find  more  or  less  of  the  attempt 
to  boycott.  In  a  recent  hearing  before 
Vice-Chancellor  Pitney,  of  New  Jer- 
sey, he  uttered  these  words  from  the 
bench: 

"Wherever  you  see  a  Labor  union, 
you  expect  boycotting.  The  Labor  unions 
have  two  methods  of  enforcing  their 
demands — the  boycott  and  the  Violence. 
Do  you  suppose  that  man  would  have 
been  murdered  at  Waterbury  yesterday  if 
it  had  not  been  for  the  influence  of  a 
Labor  union?  Nobody  believes  the 
unions  when  they  disclaim  responsibility. 


'Our  first  mention  of  the  boycott  is  in  Revelation  13:16,  17, 
as  one  of  the  methods  of  the  Beast  that  came  up  from  the  pit: 
"And  he.  causeth  all,  both  small  and  great,  rich  and  poor,  free 
and  bond,  to  receive  a  marie  in  their  right  hand,  or  in  their  fore- 
heads: and  that  no  man  might  buy  or  sell,  save  he  that  had  the 
mark,  or  the  name  of  the  beast,  or  the  number  of  his  name. ' ' 

86 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

Nobody  believed  Mr.  Mitchell,  out  in 
Pennsylvania,  when  he  said  that  the 
miners'  organization  was  not  responsible 
for  the  violence  there.  They  laugh  in 
their  sleeves  at  such  statements."  Dur- 
ing these  mining  troubles,  Mr.  Albert 
Young,  President  of  the  Teamsters' 
Union,  took  the  presidents  of  twenty 
teamsters'  locals  and  called  on  Mayor 
Harrison,  of  Chicago.  They  demanded 
that  the  city  buy  nothing  but  union  mined 
coal,  hauled  by  union  team  drivers,  or 
they  would  tie  up  immovably  every  piece 
of  freight  in  the  city;  and  the  Mayor  sub- 
mitted. 

One  of  the  most  reprehensible  cases  of 
this  was  the  boycott  recently  attempted 
against  the  Los  Angeles  Times  for  its  per- 
sistent opposition  to  organized  Labor. 
The  International  Typographical  Union 
and  the  American  Federation  of  Labor, 
87 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

with  its  two  millions  of  members,  appro- 
priated twenty-five  thousand  dollars  to 
carry  out  the  boycott.  No  member  of 
either  organization  was  to  purchase  an 
article  from  any  manufacturer  or  dealer 
who  advertised  in  this  paper,  and  the 
members  were  to  use  all  their  influence  to 
persuade  their  friends  to  do  the  same. 
A  circular  letter,  reciting  this  fact,  was 
sent  broadcast  over  our  country.  Warn- 
ing all  men  against  advertising  in  this 
paper.* 

It  is  true  that  the  boycott  is  miserably 
ineffective.  Even  the  families  of  the 
Labor  unions  do  not  live  up  to  it.  One 
of  the  most  boycotted  concerns  in  our 
country,  to  judge  from  the  resolutions  of 
unions,  is  the  National  Biscuit  Company; 

'  One  of  these  letters  was  sent  to  Geo.  P.  Bent,  Manufacturer 
of  the  Crown  Piano,  at  Chicago,  and  by  him  was  shown  to  the 
writer.  Mr.  Bent  at  once  replied  that  though  he  had  not  been  an 
advertiser  in  the  Times,  he  would  take  particular  pains  hereafter  to 
do  so,  and  added  his  denunciation  of  the  boycott  method. 

88 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

but  the  sale  of  their  stuff  goes  on  to 
laborer  and  capitaHst  as  ever. 

But  this  opposition  goes  even  further, 
and  has  frequently  destroyed  the  prop- 
erty and  even  taken  the  life  of  the  em- 
ployer. Instances  of  this  are  too  com- 
mon to  need  citation.  The  Labor 
troubles  in  Chicago  abound  with  them. 
The  Laboring  man  cannot  hold  the 
sympathy  of  the  public  and  supjwrt  his 
strike  by  the  stones  of  the  rioter  ajid  the 
torch  of  the  incendiary. 

The  claim  that  this  damage  to  property 
is  not  done  by  members  of  the  union  has 
been  found  over  and  over  again  to  be 
untrue.  The  toughs  and  thugs  of  the 
city  are  always  among  the  ranks,  but  the 
strikers  themselves  are  always  found 
forming  the  backbone  of  the  mob  and 
breathing  its  spirit.  The  moment  the 
powers  in  authority  assert  themselves,  and 
89 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

the  striking  laborers  stay  at  home  and 
conduct  themselves  as  law-abiding  citizens, 
the  disorder  ceases.  A  notable  instance 
of  this  was  the  recent  disorder  con- 
nected with  the  strike  at  the  Kellogg 
Switch-Board  Company,  of  Chicago. 
The  moment  the  mayor  listened  to  the 
protests  of  the  business  men  of  the  city 
and  issued  his  proclamation,  the  strikers 
went  to  their  homes  and  the  disgraceful 
lawlessness  ceased. 

3.  The  third  count  in  this  indictment 
against  organized  labor  is  for  limiting  the 
number  of  apprentices  in  a  trade  and.  fail- 
ing to  classify  its  members  according  to 
their  ability.  In  the  first  respect  of  this 
count,  the  union  is  made  the  destroyer 
of  the  commonest  rights  of  human  liberty 
and  becomes  a  blight  on  the  manhood  of 
the  children  of  its  own  members;  and  in 
the  second  respect,  the  union  becomes 
90 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

guilty  of  the  oft-repeated  charge  of  "level- 
ing down"  its  members. 

That  both  of  the  charges  are  true,  it  is 
easy  to  show.  Mr.  Henry  White, 
national  secretary  of  the  Garment  Work- 
ers, of  New  York,  makes  the  following 
statement:*  "The  limitation  of  appren- 
tices can  be  defended  for  economic  rea- 
sons wherever  there  are  enough  to  per- 
form the  work,  as  those  already  in  the 
trade  have  a  right  to  protect  their  stand- 
ard from  being  lowered  through  an  influx 
of  other  workmen  tempted  by  higher 
wages  which  they  have  upheld."  It  is 
rather  surprising  to  find  this  limitation 
defended  by  Rev.  Graham  Taylor,  who 
is  not  only  at  the  head  of  Chicago  Com- 
mons, but  a  professor  in  the  Congrega- 
tional Theological  Seminary  of  Chicago. 
He  is  thus  quoted  in  the  Daily  News,  of 

^  In  Public  Policy,  Apr.  4,  1 90 3. 

91 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

Chicago,  March  12,  1903.  "Labor 
unions  have  as  much  right  to  restrict  the 
number  of  apprentices  in  a  trade  as  you 
believers  in  protection  have  in  placing  a 
protective  tariff  upon  imported  goods;  or, 
the  size  of  families  now  being  a  question 
before  the  public,  as  a  man  has  in  limiting 
the  size  of  his  family.  Like  the  protect- 
ive tariff,  it  restricts  competition,  and, 
like  the  small  family,  it  permits  the  few 
to  enjoy  privileges  and  luxuries  that 
would  be  beyond  the  reach  of  a  larger 
number." 

Without  dwelling  on  the  unhappiness 
of  Prof.  Taylor's  Comparisons,  it  is 
enough  simply  to  note  the  grounds  on 
which  such  a  brutality  as  forbidding  a  boy 
to  learn  a  trade  for  which  he  is  adapted  is 
attempted.  One  of  them  is  economic, 
that  wages  may  not  be  lowered  through 
the  influx  of  more  workmen;  and  the 
92 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

other  is  personal,  that  the  workman 
may  not  be  bothered  with  teaching  an 
apprentice,  and  enjoy  the  privileges  and 
luxuries  that  would  be  beyond  the  reach 
of  a  larger  number."  The  first  of  these 
is  utterly  sordid,  puts  bread  and  butter 
above  manhood;  and  the  second  is  the 
same  selfish  sensuality  that  makes  a  mar- 
ried woman  prefer  a  pet  dog  to  a  baby. 
With  both  of  them  God  and  the  interests 
of  humanity  are  at  outs;  and  it  is  in  the 
interests  of  organized  labor,  and  all  of  its 
friends  should  plainly  understand,  that 
this  brutal  wrong,  which  would  be  visited 
chiefly  on  the  working  man's  own  children, 
is  a  hurt  to  the  rights  of  man  which  the 
American  public  will  not  allow. 

In  answer  to  the  charge  that  the  union 
levels  down  its  members  by  putting  all  of 
them  on  the  same  wage  scale,  the  claim  is 
made  that  what  the  union  demands  is  a 

93. 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

minimum  wage,  and  that  any  member  is 
allowed  to  make  all  possible  over  this. 
But  the  employer  answers  that  this  min- 
imum wage  is  always  the  maximum  wage 
that  he  can  pay  and  keep  his  business  going; 
and  when  men  are  put  on  piece  work,  the 
union  steps  in  and  limits  the  amount  of 
work  which  a  man  shall  do.  This  latter 
statement  has  been  denied,  but  proof  of 
it  is  abundant.  The  Outlook  of  March 
28,  1903,  published  the  replies  of  seven 
prominent  trades-union  officials  to  the 
question  whether  their  orga'nizations  fixed 
either  a  maximum  wage  or  a  maximum 
output  for  their  members.  All  replied 
that  every  member  of  their  unions  could 
get  as  high  wages  as  he  could  bargain  for, 
and  all  but  one  denied  any  limit  to  a 
workman's  output  during  the  working 
day.  The  same  paper,  of  May  30,  1903, 
published  some  noteworthy  answers.   One 

94 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

writer  quotes  Article  X  from  the  pub- 
lished by-laws  of  Iron-Molders'  union 
No.  8,  of  Albany,  N.  Y.,  Section  i: 
"No  member  of  this  association  working 
by  the  piece  shall  be  allowed  to  mold  more 
than  four  dollars'  worth  in  any  one  day 
or  cast,  and  no  member  working  by  the 
day  shall  be  allowed  to  work  for  less  than 
three  dollars.  .  .  .  Sec.  3.  Any 
member  convicted  of  violating  any  of  the 
provisions  of  this  article,  shall  be  fined 
two  dollars  for  the  first  offense,  and  not 
less  than  five  dollars  for  each  violation 
thereafter." 

Another  writer  quotes  from  section  7 
of  the  wage  scale  of  the  International  Ty- 
pographical Union,  190,  for  1896:  "No 
operator  of  a  machine  shall  be  permitted 
to  work  more  than  five  days  or  nights 
in  any  one  week.  Provided,  however, 
that  this  section  shall  not  be  in  force 
95 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

during  the  six  weeks  of  their  apprentice- 
ship." 

This  limitation  of  output  has  been  a 
common  thing  for  some  time  with  British 
trades-unions.  It  is  of  a  piece  with  their 
common  failure  to  classify  workmen;  and 
this,  perhaps,  most  of  all  has  caused  the 
degeneracy  of  the  British  workmen  to  a 
third-rate  place  in  the  industrial  world. 
Its  operation,  if  persisted  in,  will  cause  as 
sure  a  degeneration  of  the  American 
workmen.  It  is  a  penny-wise  and  pound 
foolish  policy,  which  leads  a  workman  to 
sell  his  enthusiasm  and  all  stimulus  to 
superior  achievement  for  an  increase  in 
the  size  of  his  loaf  of  bread  and  a  piece  of 
white  cake.  It  is  as  wrong  for  a  union  to 
shut  the  door  of  apprenticeship  against  a 
young  man  as  it  would  be  for  a  carpenter 
to  refuse  to  teach  his  trade  to  his  own  son; 
and  the  restriction  of  a  workingman's 
96 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

voluntary  output  is  as  foolish  as  to  try  to 
limit  the  number  of  barrels  of  corn  which 
one  of  God's  rich  acres  of  Illinois  land  can 
yield.  The  friends  of  Labor  owe  it  to 
the  laboring  man  and  his  oifspring  to  per- 
suade the  union  to  get  rid  of  both  of 
these  characteristics. 

THE    SOLUTION    OF    THE    PROBLEM 

In  view  of  these  things,  there  are  at 
least  three  lines  along  which  we  are  to 
find  the  solution  of  the  Labor  problem, 
all  of  which  must  be  pursued  in  the  spirit 
of  these  words  of  the  Carpenter  of  Naz- 
areth, already  emblazoned  as   our  motto. 

I.  The  incorporation  of  the  Labor  union 
and  the  enactment  of  laws  governing  its 
conduct. 

The  friends  of  the  Labor  union  are 
divided  on  this  matter.  Mr.  Clarence  S. 
Darrow,  of  Chicago,  who  acted  as  the  at- 
torney for  the  United  Mine  Workers  in  the 
G  97 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

anthracite  coal  strike,  hotly  denounces  it: 
"The  demand  for  the  incorporation  of 
trade  unions  is  the  last  trench  of  those 
who  oppose  organized  Labor.  It  is  im- 
pudent and  persumptuous.  No  friend  of 
trades-unionism  ever  believed  in  it  or  ad- 
vocated it,  or  called  for  it.  It  is  de- 
manded to-day  by  those  interests  and 
those  enemies  who  have  used  every  means 
at  their  command  to  oppose  unionism,  to 
counteract  its  influence  and  destroy  it. 
How  the  Labor  organizations  shall  man- 
age their  own  affairs  is  not  the  business  of 
the  corporations,  or  the  employers.  This 
new  demand  for  the  incorporation  of 
Labor  unions  is  not  only  unjust  and  un- 
reasonable, but  it  is  impudent  and  insult- 
ing to  the  last  degree."  Now  why  does 
Mr.  Darrow  become  so  red  in  the  face 
over  this  suggestion?  He  is  a  lawyer,  and 
he    knows   that   the    incorporation    of    a 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

union  makes  its  members  amenable  as 
such  to  law,  and  makes  its  treasury  as  well 
as  the  property  of  its  members  liable  for 
damages  to  property  and  for  violation  of 
contracts.  Is  it  "impudent"  and  "out- 
rageous" and  "insulting  to  the  last  degree" 
in  the  public  to  make  such  a  demand? 
What  is  the  word  of  a  Labor  union  worth 
otherwise?  Take  it  on  its  honor?  A 
man  who  is  ruled  by  honor  never  objects 
to  placing  himself  also  under  the  reach  of 
just  law.  The  law  is  a  terror  only  to  the 
doer  of  evil.  And  so  the  matter  appears 
to  not  a  few  of  the  friends  of  Labor.  Mr. 
E.  E.  Clark,  Grand  Chief  of  the  Order  of 
Railway  Conductors,  recently  made  the 
following  statement  before  the  Industrial 
Commission: 

"I  think  perhaps  it  will  be  some  time 
before  the  idea  will  be  generally  accepted. 
At  the  same  time  it  looks  to  me  as  if  the 
99 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

logical  conclusion  is  the  incorporation  of 
the  trade  unions  and  Labor  organizations 
under  conditions  which  place  them  on  a 
fair  basis  as  compared  with  corporations 
that  are  for  a  pecuniary  profit  or  the  in- 
corporations by  which  the  men  are  em- 
ployed." 

Before  the  same  body,  the  following 
statement  was  made  by  Mr.  G.  W. 
Perkins,  President  of  the  Cigar  Makers' 
International  Union: 

"  I  beheve  they  should  be  incorporated. 
In  the  first  place,  trades-unions  have 
nothing  to  hide;  they  are  not  violators  of 
the  law.  ...  If  incorporated,  it 
would  give  us  many  advantages. 
I  favor  being  incorporated,  first,  because 
it  would  legalize  us;  second,  give  us  more 
standing  in  the  courts.  We  are  willing  to 
be  brought  into  court  any  minute." 

Add  to  this  the  testimony  of  the  Presi- 

lOO 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

dent  of  the  Amalgamated  Association  of 
Iron,  Steel  and  Tin  Workers: 

"I  hope  the  time  will  come  when  the 
Amalgamated  Association  will  be  able  to 
take  out  letters  of  incorporation  and  be- 
come a  chartered  institution.  .  .  .  // 
will  obviate  the  necessity  for  strikes;  do 
away  with  the  strike  entirely.  It  would 
bring  the  manufacturer  and  his  employe 
close  together,  into  more  friendly  rela- 
tions. It  would  enable  them  to  see  that 
as  one  prospers,  the  other  prospers;  as 
one  suffers,  the  other  necessarily  suffers 
also."  And  then  he  pathetically  adds 
what  Mr.  Darrow  plainly  showed,  "Our 
people  are  not  ready  for  it.  They  are  not 
educated  up  to  the  point  yet."^ 

At  this  point  it  is  worth  while  to  note 
also   the  opinion  on  this   subject  of  the 


^Cf.  Report   of  Industrial  Commission,  Vol.  IV. ,  p.   1 1 6,  and 
Vol.  VII.,  pp.  8,171-2,  387-8. 

lOI 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

man,  who,  perhaps,  most  of  all  is  fitted  by 
ability  and  vocation  to  utter  the  wise 
word  in  the  matter.  This  is  the  recent 
statement  of  Carroll  D.  Wright,  the  Fed- 
eral Commissioner  of  Labor:^ 

"I  believe,  if  you  will  allow  me  to  ex- 
press an  opinion,  that  trade  unionism  will 
take  a  very  great  stride  in  securing  the 
respect  and  co-operation  of  the  public 
when  it  desires  to  incorporate.  There 
are  cases  where  incorporation  would  result 
in  success,  when  the  acts  of  voluntary  as- 
sociations would  result  in  failure.  It 
would  dignify  the  whole  business,  to  say 
the  least,  and  protect  the  funds  and  pro- 
tect the  members." 

In  view  of  these,  and  other  like  state- 
ments, it  is  hard  to  find  any  sanity  in  the 
hot  words  of  Mr.  Darrow.     They  must 


^Cf.  Report  of  Industrial  Commission,  Vol.  IV.,  p.  ii6,  and 
Vol.  VII.,  pp.  8,  171-2,  387-8. 

lOZ 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

be  due  either  to  those  personal  idiosyn- 
crasies that  have  made  him  an  extremist 
generally,  or  to  a  mind  overheated  with  a 
passion  for  playing  to  the  gallery  of  that 
lawless  hoodlum  element  which  still  dis- 
graces the  Labor  union. 

The  fact  is,  the  incorporation  of  the 
Labor  union  looks  inevitable.  It  is 
demanded  by  the  employer.  If  he  must 
deal  with  it  in  making  contracts,  by  every 
law  of  justice,  It  should  be  made  legally  and 
financially  responsible  for  the  performance 
of  them.  Contracts  with  a  union  may  be 
and  many  are  to-day  broken  with  Impun- 
ity. Financial  responsibility  Is  essential 
to  the  worth  of  any  contract. 

It  Is  demanded  even  more  strongly 
by  the  Interests  of  the  laboring  men 
themselves.  Time  and  again,  as  they 
have  not  the  least  doubt,  their  leaders 
have  sold  them  out  and  betrayed  their  in- 
103 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

terests,  and  scores  more  of  them  should  be 
behind  the  bars  with  Lawrence  Murphy. 
That  they  may  be  managed  in  the  in- 
terest of  their  members,  their  funds  be 
protected,  their  leadership  lie  in  responsible 
and  worthy  hands,  their  negotiations  be 
carried  on  with  dignity  and  effectiveness, 
and  the  unions  themselves  have  some 
standing  in  both  the  great  court  of 
humanity  as  well  as  the  lesser  civil  court, 
the  union  should  be  incorporated  and 
carefully  controlled  by  law. 

It  is  demanded  by  the  general  public. 
Perhaps  on  no  other  one  thing  does 
public  sentiment  seem  to  be  more  crystal- 
lized. For  the  public  has  grown  weary  of 
the  irresponsible  Labor  leader,  who  calls 
a  strike  on  or  off  to  keep  his  job  or  fat- 
ten his  purse,  and  of  a  body  of  even 
laboring  men  whom  a  strike  converts  into 
a  lawless  and  brutal  mob. 
104 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

The  Labor  union  Is  here  to  stay.  It  is 
to  be  hoped  so,  at  least.  With  all  of  its 
handicaps,  and  seldom  if  ever  was  a  move- 
ment more  handicapped,  It  has  brought 
vast  benefits  to  the  laboring  man.  The 
greatest  mistake  of  the  employer  has  been 
to  fight  Its  existence;  for  his  opposition  to 
what  the  public  recognizes  as  but  the 
workingman's  commonest  right,  has  not 
only  destroyed  the  workingman's  confi- 
dence in  his  employer's  sense  of  fairness, 
but  put  the  conduct  of  the  union  under 
control  of  the  worst  element  of  Labor. 
This  mistake  will  best  be  retrieved  by  the 
employer's  giving  all  possible  assistance 
In  placing  the  union  on  a  respectable  legal 
and  financial  footing  and  placing  the  best 
element  of  Labor  at  its  head.  No  fair- 
minded  employer  has  much  to  fear  from 
the  union  that  is  dominated  by  the  spirit 
of  such  men  as  the  late  P.  M.  Arthur. 
105 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 
ARBITRATION 

1.  The  second  line  along  which  our 
problem  must  be  worked  out  deals  with 
the  matter  of  arbitration.  What  place 
should  arbitration  have  in  the  settlement 
of  Labor  troubles?  And  should  the  arbi- 
tration be  voluntary  or  compulsory? 

The  first  question  will  not  need  argu- 
ment. Arbitration  should  have  always 
the  first  place.  There  are  only  three  pos- 
sible solutions  for  a  Labor  dispute:  The 
military,  public  ownership,  or  arbitration. 
Experience  shows  that  the  first  two  go  to- 
gether where  the  second  is  attempted;  for 
it  takes  the  presence  of  the  army  to  keep 
order  during  strikes  on  government  rail- 
ways in  Holland,  as  well  as  on  private 
railroads  in  the  United  States.  The  only 
sensible  thing  for  any  dispute  is  the  apos- 
tolic way,  to  arbitrate  it.  But,  face  the 
second  question,  Should  this  arbitration  be 
1 06 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

compulsory  and  the  decision  of  the  arbi- 
trators final?  Voluntary  arbitration  which 
settles  the  dispute  is  the  ideal  solution; 
but  suppose  one  of  the  parties  is  dissatis- 
fied with  the  decision  and  refuses  to  abide 
by  it?  Make  him  abide  by  it?  Shall  we 
establish  In  our  land,  either  one  court,  or  a 
series  of  courts  of  appeal,  which  shall  have 
the  power  to  say  to  a  stonemason,  "You 
must  lay  stone  for  so  much  a  day,  or  you 
cannot  lay  it  at  all?"  Or  to  the  owner  of 
a  team,  "You  must  pay  so  much  to  your 
driver,  or  you  must  drive  It  yourself?" 

Compulsory  arbitration  looks  fascina- 
ting at  first  glance;  but  its  principle  is 
rotten  at  heart,  and  its  application  to  In- 
dustry is  so  artificial  as  to  bring  about 
paralysis.  It  is  the  confiscation  of  both 
the  Labor  and  the  capital  arbitrated  on, 
and  It  substitutes  artificiality  for  natural- 
ness in  the  adjustment  of  Industrial  rela- 
107 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

tlons.  An  illustration  of  compulsory 
arbitration  is  to  be  found  in  New  Zealand, 
and  we  may  do  well  to  study  it  there. 
The  courts  of  arbitration  set  the  prices  of 
Labor,  and  the  employer  must  pay  these 
prices  or  go  out  of  the  manufacturing 
business,  and  the  laborer  must  work  for 
these  wages  or  find  work  in  some  other 
country.  The  result  has  been,  not  the 
increase  of  wages,  but  the  death  of  the 
manufacturing  business  in  New  Zealand. 
The  manufacturers  discovered  that  they 
could  import  the  product  of  their  factory 
at  less  cost  than  they  could  manufacture 
it  and  pay  the  wages  fixed  by  the  arbitra- 
tion court;  so  they  closed  down  their 
plants,  ceased  manufacturing,  and  became 
jobbers.  This  has  taken  place  in  factory 
after  factory  in  New  Zealand,  till  the 
sales-agent  in  New  Zealand  of  an  Ameri- 
can house  recently  said,  in  speaking  of  the 
io8 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

country:  "  It  is  a  very  good  place  to 
raise  sheep,  but  as  for  manufacturing,  it  is 
as  dead  as  a  stinking  mackerel,  and  pros- 
pects of  its  ever  being  anything  else  are 
forever  blasted."  An  illustration  of  this 
took  place  last  March  in  the  furniture 
business  in  Auckland.  The  Arbitration 
court  gave  a  decision  increasing  the  wages 
of  certain  cabinet  makers.  The  em- 
ployers found  themselves  unable  to  pay 
the  wage  and  simply  locked  their  doors. 
Following  this  came  the  significant  cable 
in  the  London  Times  that  the  furniture 
dealers  of  Auckland  "would  in  the  future 
import  all  the  furniture  required;"  and 
the  tragedy  back  of  it  is  the  death  of  the 
manufacture  of  furniture  in  Auckland. 
Suppose  in  the  infancy  of  the  industry, 
Grand  Rapids  and  the  furniture  business 
of  America  had  been  handicapped  with 
such  a  decision! 

109 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

But  there  is  a  place  for  arbitration. 
The  pubHc  has  the  right  to  demand  that 
time  contracts  should  be  made  between 
the  employer  and  his  men,  and  that  all 
disputes  over  these  contracts  must  be  set- 
tled by  arbitration;  and  that  no  strikes 
shall  take  place  during  the  time  which 
these  contracts  cover.  In  addition  to  this, 
arbitration  should  always  be  the  court  of 
first  resort  for  all  disputes,  and  the  find- 
ings of  it  should  be  disregarded  only 
when  the  conditions  imposed  are  un- 
bearable. 

PROFIT    SHARING 

3.  But  manifestly,  however  diligently 
and  sincerely  both  capitalist  and  laborer 
may  take  to  voluntary  arbitration  to  settle 
their  differences,  there  will  arise  in  the 
future,  as  have  arisen  in  the  past,  cases 
which  defy  all  attempts  at  arbitration. 
However  sincerely  both  sides  may  attempt 
1 10 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

to  apply  this  great  teaching  of  the  Car- 
penter of  Nazareth,  so  long  as  human 
nature  remains  what  it  is,  these  instances 
will  arise.  And  the  acutest  troubles, 
arousing  the  deepest  bitterness  and  accom- 
panied with  most  brutality  and  lawlessness, 
will  always  be  exactly  those  which  arbitra- 
tion cannot  reach.  Can  these  be  reached 
at  all?  or,  in  such  cases,  must  the  two 
parties  be  allowed  to  go  down  into  the 
cock-pit  and  fight  to  the  finish,  while  the 
suffering  public  goes  without  its  breakfast 
and  sits  up  at  night  to  guard  its  prop- 
erty ? 

An  inseparable  basis  of  happy  relations 
between  Labor  and  capital  is  the  mutual 
recognition  of  their  partnership,  and  im- 
plicit confidence  in  each  other's  fairness 
and  honesty.  The  identity  of  the  work- 
ing man's  interests  with  his  employer's 
has  been  rubbed  in  so  faithfully  of  late 
III 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

that  the  most  stupid  laborer  has  doubtless 
heard  of  it.  Laboring  men,  in  general, 
recognize  that  only  as  their  employer 
prospers  can  they  prosper.  But  not  a  few 
of  them  are  firmly  convinced  that  they  are 
not  coming  in  for  a  fair  share  of  the  pros- 
perity. Without  any  doubt  this  convic- 
tion is  at  the  bottom  of  nearly  all  Labor 
troubles.  The  thing  which  will  remove 
this  feeling  from  the  heart  of  the  laboring 
man  will  put  an  end  to  "strikes." 

How  can  it  be  done?  In  one  and  only 
one  way,  by  the  principle  of  profit-shar- 
ing. "If  you  and  I  are  partners,"  says 
the  laborer  to  his  employer,  "let  us  divide 
the  profits.  And  if  you  are  willing  to  do 
the  square  thing,  we  will  be  exact  about  it 
and  strike  the  balance  each  year  in  dollars 
and  cents."  The  refusal  to  do  this  puts 
suspicion  on  the  employer  and  makes  all 
his  talk  about  the  identity  of  their  interests 

I  iz 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

and  his  willingness  to  give  Labor  its  fair 
share  of  profits,  hypocritical  cant. 

WHAT    IS    PROFIT    SHARING? 

But  what  do  we  mean  by  profit  sharing? 
Not  a  little  goes  on  under  this  name  that 
is  really  farcical.  Profit  sharing  does  not 
mean  the  Christmas  gift  of  a  turkey  or 
even  of  a  hundred  dollars  to  each  of  the 
workmen  when  the  year  has  been  specially 
prosperous.  It  means  an  exact  distribu- 
tion of  profits,  upon  a  previously  agreed 
upon  principle,  and  carried  out  according 
to  exact  mathematical  calculation.  The 
capital  invested  gets  first  its  fair  percent- 
age of  the  earnings  and  the  laborers  their 
living  wage  and  the  officials  their  fair 
salary.  Any  profits  left  are  to  be  divided 
proportionably  between  the  capital  and 
Labor.  A  very  just  principle  of  the  dis- 
tribution Is  that  adopted,  for  example,  by 
the  A.   S.   Baker  Company,  near  Evans- 

H  113 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

ville,  Wisconsin.  The  salary  of  a  laborer 
is  looked  on  as  the  interest  on  so  much 
capital  which  he  has  in  the  business;  so  if 
the  percentage  which  the  capitalist's  in- 
vestment should  have  is  six  per  cent.,  a 
laborer  who  receives  six  hundred  dollars  a 
year  is  calculated  for  ten  thousand  dollars 
capital  when  it  comes  to  the  distribution 
of  the  surplus  profits;  and  so  with  the 
salaried  officials.  The  influence  of  this 
on  the  workman  has  been  an  inspiration, 
and  the  prosperity  of  the  business,  which 
was  about  to  be  foreclosed  in  1875,  ^^^ 
been  remarkable. 

The  details,  however,  of  this  principle 
are  something  which  each  concern  must 
determine  for  itself;  but  undoubtedly  it  is 
the  feasible  and  fair  thing  for  all  industries. 
The  prosperity  of  the  concerns  which  have 
tried  it  and  the  manifest  fairness  and 
justice  of  the  principle  to  all  concerned, 
114 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

should  commend  it  for  speedy  and  uni- 
versal adoption  in  the  industrial  world.* 
In  some  cases,  like  the  United  States 
Steel  Company  and  the  N.  O.  Nelson 
Company,  at  LeClaire,  Ills.,  inducements 
are  offered  the  men  to  accept  their  bonus 
in  stocks.  Should  this  be  compulsory, 
the  stock  should  be  the  company's  pre- 
ferred creditor,  or  become  a  first-mortgage 
bond. 

BUT    IF    INDUSTRIES    LOSE    MONEY? 

This  principle  may  operate  successfully, 
It  may  be  answered,  in  times  of  prosperity; 
but  what  will  you  do  when  the  concern  is 
losing  money?  During  such  seasons  of 
depression  there  will  be  no  profits  to 
divide;  the  workmen  will  be  all  the  more 
willing  to   have  their  wages   reduced  till 

iSome  of  the  prominent  concerns  in  this  country  which  have 
adopted  the  principle  and  carried  it  out  successfully  are:  The  Pillsbury 
Flour  Mills,  Minneapolis,  Procter  &  Gamble  Soap  Works,  at  Cin- 
cinnati, Yale  &  Towne  Lock  Company,  at  Stamford,  Conn., 
Bourne  Cotton  Mill,  Fall  River,  Mass. 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

the  concern  can  make  money;  and  In  all 
cases  all  money  lost  must  be  remade  be- 
fore any  surplus  profits  can  be  calculated. 

THE    FRENCH    METHOD 

Certainly  this  is  the  direction  in  which 
the  successful  portion  of  the  industrial 
world  is  moving  to-day.  It  is  now  in  the 
hands  of  the  captains  of  industry  to  take 
it  up  and  establish  it.  If  this  is  not  done, 
the  prospects  are  that,  barring  socialism 
and  municipal  or  government  ownership 
(from  both  of  which  we  may  well  pray  at 
present  to  be  delivered),  the  laboring  men 
will  take  the  matter  into  their  own  hands, 
and  organize  their  industries,  perhaps, 
along  the  same  lines  as  many  of  them  are 
now  organized  in  France.  There  the 
artisans  of  the  different  industries  organize 
themselves  into  "societies,"  of  which  there 
are  over  two  thousand  in  France,  and 
which  control  their  respective  industries, 
ii6 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

sharing  the  profits  of  an  industry  among 
the  members  of  that  special  "society." 
They  elect  one  of  their  members  director 
of  the  industry,  and  a  president,  who  is 
not  always  chosen  from  the  working  class. 
The  distinguished  sociologist  and  man  of 
letters,  Leopold  Mabilleau,  for  example, 
is  now  president  of  the  "Jean  Le  Claire 
society  of  Co-operation,"  of  Paris,  in 
which  are  organized  the  house  and  sign 
painters  of  that  city.  The  director  and 
president  receive  a  salary,  fixed  by  the 
Society.  The  peculiar  characteristic  of 
all  is  the  principle  of  profit-sharing,  and 
the  following  is  an  example  of  its  opera- 
tion. Every  three  months  the  director 
reckons  the  profits  for  the  quarter  of  the 
year  just  passed.  One-half  of  this 
amount  is  set  aside  to  be  distributed 
among  the  working  men,  the  portion 
which  each  receives  amounting  to  from 
117 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

twenty  to  twenty-four  per  cent,  of  his 
wages  during  the  period.  One-fourth  of 
the  profits  goes  to  the  chief  of  the  indus- 
try and  his  collaborators  in  recognition  of 
the  experience  and  intelligence  required  to 
manage  a  large  business.  The  disposition 
of  the  fourth  part  is  a  unique  feature  to 
which,  the  president  of  this  society  claims, 
is  due  much  of  the  success  of  the  whole 
venture.  It  goes  to  a  cash  insurance  fund 
for  the  workmen  against  illness,  accident, 
premature  death  and  old  ^ge.  In  the 
sixty  years  of  this  society's  existence,  this 
fund  has  grown  to  the  sum  of  twenty-five 
million  francs,  and  now  the  interest  on 
this  fund  is  sufficient  to  pay  the  insurance 
benefits    as    needed. 

Whatever     may     be     the    details     of 
the  plan,  along  this    line    of  fair    profit- 
sharing  will    be    found    the    only    com- 
plete   and    final    solution  of  our  Labor 
ii8 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION 

troubles.  The  wage  question  can  be 
settled  permanently  in  no  other  way,  be- 
cause anything  short  of  this  lays  the  em- 
ployer open  to  suspicion;  and  this  means 
industrial  trouble.  Increase  of  wages  is 
but  a  temporary  appeasement,  like  throw- 
ing morsels  to  a  pack  of  pursuing  wolves 
sometimes,  if  the  laboring  man  will  for- 
give the  comparison;  for  it  only  serves  to 
whet  his  appetite  for  more,  and  convinces 
him  that  there  is  something  more  where 
this  came  from.  Even  brothers  will  fall 
out  over  the  division  of  dollars  if  they 
have  not  absolute  confidence  in  each 
other's  fairness  and  honesty.  Let  the 
employer  take  the  laboring  man  into  his 
confidence,  let  the  partnership  be  carried 
out  on  the  books  as  well  as  in  name,  let 
identity  of  interests  be  a  working  principle 
instead  of  a  soothing  syrup;  and  the  peace 
which  has  ever  come  along  with  prosperity 
119 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

and  vigor  to  the  life  that  is  ruled  by  the 
word  of  Jesus,  will  soon  steal  over  our 
troubled  world  of  industry. 

Let  us  enthrone  the  spirit  of  Jesus 
Christ  in  our  industrial  world,  and  do  to 
each  other  as  we  would  be"  done  by.  It 
boots  us  little  joy  to  change  war  for  peace, 
to  beat  our  swords  into  plough-shares  and 
our  spears  into  pruning-hooks,  if  Vv^e  use 
the  plough-shares  to  break  each  other's 
skulls  and  maim  one  another  with  the 
pruning-hooks.  Let  us  learn  to  treat  each 
other  fairly  in  this  matter;  and  He  whose 
word  stilled  the  raging  sea  will  still  the 
strife  and  violence  that  fill  out  great  cities. 
The  Industrial  world  shall  be  full  of«^His 
peace,  and  the  fruits  of  its  prosperity,  at 
whose  heart  there  will  be  no  worm  of  bit- 
terness, shall  fill  the  homes  and  gladden 
the  lives  of  the  millions  who  toil  by  either 
brain  or  hand. 

1 20 


THE  LIQUOR   PROBLEM 


^^The  land^  through  which  we  have  gone 
to  search  it^  is  a  land  that  eateth  up  the  in- 
habitants thereof y 

The  Scouts  of  Israel. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE    LIQUOR    PROBLEM 

The  Liquor  question  is  a  problem  of 
vital  interest  to  every  nation,  from  the 
drunkards  of  Belgium  and  the  reckless 
absinthe  drinkers  of  Paris  to  the  abstemi- 
ous Turk.  But,  if  for  no  other  reason, 
because  of  climatic  influences  and  the 
nervous  temperament  produced  thereby, 
it  is  most  of  all  a  serious  problem  to  this 
strenuous  American  nation.  No  tempera- 
ment is  so  nervous  and  no  life  is  so  stren- 
uous as  the  American;  and  because  of  this 
very  fineness  of  his  nervous  fibre  and  his 
hot  pace  of  life,  there  is  no  physical  tem- 
123 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

perament  so  prone  to  over  indulgence 
when  the  drink  habit  is  once  begun,  and 
there  is  no  wreck  so  complete  and  pitiful 
as  the  American  drunkard. 

However  vitally  the  Liquor  problem 
may  concern  other  nations,  it  is  pre-emi- 
nently a  problem  of  deepest  concern  with 
the  people  of  America. 

When  we  come  to  consider  the  Liquor 
problem,  there  are  two  things  that  appal 
us.  One  is  the  ruin  which  the  drink 
habit  brings  to  the  individual  who  forms 
it,  and  the  other  is  the  far-reaching  and 
blighting  effects  of  the  Liquor  interests 
on  the  welfare  of  our  social  order. 

The  evil  effects  of  intemperance  in  the 
individual  do  not  need  to  be  retold.  The 
picture  is  too  common  in  experience  for 
us  to  forget  it,  and  to  describe  the  wreck 
which  it  makes  of  the  moral  and  spiritual 
nature,  as  well  as  of  body  and  mind,  has 
124 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

exhausted  the  speech  of  our  orators  and 
the  pathos  of  our  poets.  The  intemperate 
use  of  Liquor  makes  of  even  our  goodly 
land  of  plenty  and  liberty  "a  land  that 
eateth  up  the  inhabitants  thereof."^  It 
would  be  but  a  waste  of  words  to  picture 
with  even  true  vividness  the  deadly  blight 
which  drink  has  brought  to  our  firesides 
and  social  circles;  the  wreckage  is  piled  up 
too  high  before  our  very  eyes  to  need 
words  to  prove  that  it  is  there.  One 
father  out  of  every  five  in  our  land  fur- 
nishes a  son  for  a  drunkard's  grave.  The 
dark  picture  already  fills  us  with  unutter- 
able sadness;  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  our 
present  inactivity  in  the  matter  is  not  due 
to  indifference,  but  to  that  despair  of  bet- 
tering conditions  which  has  come  on  us 
from  the  failure  of  past  efforts  to  better 
conditions.      To-day    it    looks    as    if  the 

1  Numbers  13  :  32. 

125 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

majority  of  even  Christian  people  had 
given  over  the  matter  to  fanatics  and 
cranks;  and  the  fear  of  faUing  on  the  tire- 
some abuse  of  those  who  disagree  with 
them  appears  to  make  most  circles  avoid 
even  a  discussion  of  the  subject.  "  What 
can't  be  cured,  must  be  endured,"  is  their 
solacing  proverb;  and  when  they  see  a  man 
go  down  in  the  maelstrom  of  drink,  they 
say,  "  Well,  if  a  man  will  make  a  fool  of 
himself,  he  must  pay  the  penalty." 

The  second  thing  which  so  appals  us  is 
the  far-reaching  and  blighting  effects  of 
this  liquor  business  on  the  welfare  of  our 
social  order. 

The  politics  of  our  country,  both  city 
and  state  are  largely  controlled  by  the 
liquor  interests,  who  are  ever  dictating 
both  what  legislation  shall  be  enacted  and 
to  what  extent  enacted  legislation  shall  be 
enforced.  Wendell  Philhps  said  not  long 
126 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

before  his  death:  "The  large  cities  of 
this  country  are  governed  by  the  saloons 
in  their  own  interests;"  and  Lord  Rose- 
berry,  ex-premier  of  Great  Britain,  said  in 
a  recent  speech:  "If  the  nation  does  not 
soon  control  the  liquor  traffic,  the  liquor 
traffic  will  control  the  nation."  When 
the  saloon  is  robbed  of  its  power,  a 
mighty  stride  will  have  been  taken  in  the 
purification  of  politics. 

An  evil  under  which  especially  our 
urban  population  is  groaning  today  is  the 
burden  of  enormous  taxation;  and  the 
attempted  evasion  of  it  by  the  wealthy 
has  become  one  of  the  moral  disgraces  of 
our  urban  life.  This  enormous  taxation 
is  required  somewhat  for  material  improve- 
ments, but  the  bulk  of  it  goes  to  protect 
property,  to  support  penitentiaries  and 
jails,  and  to  maintain  criminal  courts. 
The  prevention  of  an  intemperate  use  of 
127 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

liquor  promises  to  remove  the  bulk  of 
this  burden;  for  according  to  the  statistics 
of  Hon.  Carroll  D..  Wright,  the  highest 
authority  in  our  land  on  this  subject, 
"ninety-two  per  cent,  of  our  crime  is  the 
result  of  intoxicating  liquors." 

It  is  also  the  mother  of  most  of  the 
vice  that  curses  our  land.  It  directly 
furnishes  our  asylums  with  twenty-five 
per  cent,  of  our  insane,  and  fifty  per  cent, 
of  all  our  idiots  and  imbeciles  are  the 
offispring  of  drunkards. 

It  is  of  supreme  moment  in  determin- 
ing the  longevity  of  life.  Ever  and  anon 
we  are  hearing  of  the  octogenarian  who 
has  been  an  inveterate  user  of  tobacco  and 
whiskey  from  youth.  Most  of  them  are 
run  down  as  newspaper  canards,  but  some 
of  them  are  real.  Statistics  indicate  that 
the  real  cases  might  have  been  nonagena- 
rians or  centenarians  had  they  left  whisky 
128 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

and  tobacco  alone.  The  British  Registrar- 
General  has  published  a  table  of  the  com- 
parative mortality  of  men,  from  twenty- 
five  to  sixty-five  years  of  age,  the  inquiry 
covering  a  period  of  three  years.  The 
standard  of  one  hundred  was  taken  as  the 
lowest  death-rate,  the  most  healthful  class, 
and  these  are  his  results:  Inn-keepers 
and  liquor  dealers  represented  a  mortality 
of  274;  inn  or  hotel  service,  397;  and 
brewers,  245;  while  farmers  are  put  down 
at  114,  gardeners  at  108,  and  ministers  at 
100.  Between  1880  and  1890,  there 
were  in  the  United  States  21,384  deaths 
from  yellow  fever,  and  650,000  deaths 
from  alcohol;  yet  we  license  alcohol  and 
quarantine  yellow  fever. 

Then   there   is    the   great   problem    of 

every  age,  the    problem   of  poverty  and 

the    unemployed.     What    is     the    great 

cause  of  poverty,    as  well    as    of  crime? 

I  129 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

What  keeps  the  laboring  man  poor? 
The  drink  bill  of  Great  Britain  last 
year  was  nearly  nine  hundred  millions 
of  dollars,  and  that  of  the  United  States 
was  in  the  neighborhood  of  one  and  a 
quarter  billions  of  dollars.  Belgium  has 
a  liquor  shop  for  every  thirty-nine  of  its 
inhabitants.  Now  the  larger  part  of  this 
is  paid  out  of  the  scant  earnings  of  those 
who,  from  the  very  nature  of  their  occu- 
pation, are  the  unemployed  during  a  large 
portion  of  the  year.  Dr.  E.  R.  L.  Gould 
has  published  statistics  which  show  that 
the  saloon  keepers  receive  from  the 
laboring  classes  in  the  five  leading 
countries  of  the  world  three-fifths  as  much 
as  the  landlords.  The  poverty  of  the 
laboring  classes  is  largely  the  product  of 
drink.  What  should  be  saved  to  set  up  a 
business  of  his  own  he  foolishly  carries  to 
the  till  of  the  saloon  keeper.  Eighteen 
130 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

thousand  men  marched  through  the 
streets  of  Chicago  one  day,  and  on  a  ban- 
ner at  the  head  of  their  procession  was 
this  sad  and  startling  inscription,  "Our 
children  cry  for  bread!"  The  proces- 
sion, after  its  march  through  the  city, 
moved  to  a  grove  where  it  rested — and 
drank  fourteen  hundred  kegs  of  beer! 
No  wonder  "Our  children  cry  for  bread." 
Doubtless  there  are  many  inequalities 
in  our  present  social  and  industrial  order 
which  need  to  be  righted,  but  one  of  the  first 
steps  will  be  taken  toward  securing  peace  in 
the  industrial  world  when  the  liquor  shop 
is  closed  and  the  laboring  man  spends 
his  leisure  hours  with  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren, and  saves  a  part  of  his  wages.  The 
vital  difference  to-day  is  not  between  the 
man  who  receives  high  wages  and  the  man 
who  is  paid  too  little,  but  between  the  man 
who  has  earned  his  money  and  laid  it  up, 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

in  savings  banks  or  a  home,  and  the  man 
who  has  earned  his  money  and  might  have 
laid  it  up,  but  chose  to  spend  it  for 
whisky  and  tobacco. 

In  the  face  of  these  things,  it  is  not  to 
be  wondered  at  that  this  problem  looms 
up  so  big  before  the  eyes  of  philanthro- 
pists and  social  reformers,  that  they  often 
lose  sight  of  other  questions  and  their 
ardor  for  the  abolition  of  the  whiskey 
traffic  becomes  fanatical. 

Lord  Wolseley  did  not  speak  too 
strongly  in  his  famous  address  to  the 
Soldiers'  Good  Templars'  Lodge  in  Bel- 
fast garrison:  "There  are  yet  some  great 
battles  to  be  fought,  some  great  enemies 
to  be  encountered,  by  the  United  King- 
dom, but  the  most  pressing  enemy  is 
drink.  It  kills  more  than  all  our  newest 
weapons  of  warfare,  and  not  only  destroys 
the  body,  but  the  mind  and  soul." 
132 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

But  the  most  discouraging  thing  about 
the  problem  is  the  seemingly  utter  inabil- 
ity of  the  students  of  it  to  agree  on  a  cure 
for  the  trouble.  It  is  the  most  fruitful  of 
all  themes  for  a  newspaper  symposium, 
for  every  writer  differs  from  every  other, 
and  the  whole  has  a  kaleidoscopic  variety 
that  dazzles  the  vision  and  defies  classifi- 
cation. 

THE    HISTORY    OF    THE    PROBLEM 

The  history  of  the  temperance  ques- 
tion, like  the  history  of  all  other  progress 
which  man  has  made,  shows  a  series  of 
blunders  and  corrections,  a  process  of  edu- 
cation through  experience. 

When  the  evil  of  intemperance  first 
began  to  be  felt,  the  watchword  of 
Christian  men  was  moderation.  Drunken- 
ness Is  disgraceful.  Be  able  to  walk  to 
bed  on  your  own  legs  and  keep  yourself 
out  of  the  gutter.  It  brought  a  great 
133 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

advance  on  the  disgraceful  order  of  glut- 
tonness  and  wine-bibbing  which  preceded 
it,  but  it  did  not  touch  the  root  of  the 
evil.  The  traveling  preacher  still  carried 
his  bottle  in  his  saddle  bags,  the  children 
of  the  household  got  their  first  lessons  in 
drunkenness  from  the  bottom  of  their 
father's  mint-julep  glass,  and  the  great 
army  of  hopeless  drunkards  continued  to 
be  constantly  recruited  from  the  ranks  of 
the  moderate  drinkers. 

Then  followed  the  noble  crusade  of  the 
teetotalers.  Moderate  drinking  could 
never  cure  the  evil,  for  few  men  were  able 
to  preserve  the  moderation;  so  they  went 
at  the  awful  curse  with  moral  suasion  and 
the  pledge  of  total  abstinence.  It  was  a 
day  of  noble  service  and  grand  eloquence, 
one  of  the  great  periods  in  our  nation's 
history.  Such  men  as  John  B.  Gough 
brought  the  pledge  to  the  front  and  made 

134 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

the  welkin  ring  with  the  manly  word  of 
the  apostle,  "If  meat  make  my  brother  to 
offend,  I  will  eat  no  meat  while  the  world 
stands."  But  even  the  moral  suasion  of 
a  torn  and  bleeding  world,  pictured  in  the 
moving  eloquence  of  the  world's  most 
gifted  orators,  and  accompanied  with  the 
plaintive  cries  of  broken-hearted  wives 
and  starving  children  and  wrecked 
manhood,  failed  to  uproot  the  curse. 
It  put  on  the  brakes,  but  it  could 
not  throw  the  demon  of  destruction 
from  the  track.  Topers  signed  the 
pledge,  and  many  of  them  sacredly  kept 
it,  but,  as  some  one  put  it,  "Toper  facto- 
ries still  prospered."  The  reformers 
spent  their  time  in  tossing  life-preservers 
to  the  drowning  victims  of  intemperance, 
but  the  dram  shops,  entrenched  further 
up  the  river  behind  the  earth-works  of 
civil    protection,    were  throwing  in   fresh 

135 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

victims    faster    than   the  reformers  could 
rescue  them. 

Then  came  the  important  step  of  re- 
pressive legislation,  and  the  friends  of 
temperance  set  about  securing  the  enact- 
ment of  laws  which  would  make  it  pos- 
sible to  abolish  the  manufacture  and  sale 
of  Liquor.  The  Liquor  interests  met 
this  with  the  cry,  "You  cannot  make 
people  moral  by  law,"  and  fought  the 
legislation  as  an  infraction  of  the  con- 
stitution. The  friends  of  temperance 
answered,  "You  can  protect  society  by 
law,"  and  their  victory  in  the  civil  courts 
established  the  constitutionality  of  a  law 
which  gave  the  community  itself  the  right 
to  say  whether  Liquor  should  be  sold  in  it. 
So  the  principle  of  prohibition,  however 
men  regarded  its  practicability,  gained  its 
right  to  existence  both  in  the  court  of 
public  opinion  and  before  the  civil  court. 
136 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

Then  came  the  grreatest  blunder, 
perhaps,  which  the  friends  of  temperance 
ever  made,  the  identification  of  the 
principle  of  extermination  with  a  political 
party.  It  was  a  very  natural  blunder,  but 
it  was  no  less  fatal,  handicapping  the  solu- 
tion of  this  question  with  a  multitude  of 
other  questions  about  which  men  will  al- 
ways differ,  from  protective  tariff  and 
female  suffrage  to  questions  of  currency, 
and  taking  up  the  cudgel  against  the  In- 
dividual's innate  devotion  to  his  political 
party.  Since  that  ill-fated  hour,  the  cause 
of  righteousness  against  the  Liquor  traffic 
has  steadily  lost  ground;  and  to-day  it  is 
the  firm  conviction  of  the  average  Chris- 
tian man  that  the  work  of  routing  the 
Liquor  traffic  through  the  organization 
known  as  the  "Prohibition  Party"  is  as 
hopeless  as  battering  down  Gibraltar  with 
a  child's  toy  pistol. 

137 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

SOME    PROPOSED    REMEDIES 

Keeping  this  history  in  mind,  let  us 
consider  some  of  the  remedies  which  are 
proposed. 

PROHIBITION 

I.  The  first,  and  the  most  natural 
answer,  is  Prohibition.  If  Liquor  brings 
such  a  brood  of  curses  to  our  land,  let  us 
cast  it  out.  It  may  be  useful  in  the  arts, 
good  for  medicine,  and  may  be  safely  used 
by  many  in  moderation.  But  if  it  curses 
our  land  thus,  we  pay  too  highly  for  it. 
Abolish  both  its  sale  and  manufacture. 

This  is  the  position  of  a  majority  of  the 
voters  in  some  of  our  states,  and  so  we 
have  seen  for  over  a  quarter  of  a  century 
State  Prohibition  on  trial.  The  result, 
though  stoutly  defended  by  many  of  the 
friends  of  temperance,  has  not  been  a 
marked  success.  The  sentiment  has  never 
been  so  overwhelmingly  in  favor  of  the  law 
138 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

and  so  permeative  of  the  whole  state,  as  to 
make  the  law  thoroughly  operative.  The 
traveller  in  any  prohibition  state  who 
wants  whiskey  boasts  that  he  can  get  it; 
and  the  evasions  of  the  law  are  winked  at 
by  even  a  large  class  of  those  who  are  not 
consumers  of  whiskey.  Prohibition  can 
never  be  a  success  in  a  state,  or  in  any 
large  territory,  until  public  sentiment  is 
overwhelmingly  and  ardently  in  favor 
of  it.  The  history  of  the  movement  does 
not  show  that  such  has  been  the  case  in 
our  country.  This  weakness  of  public 
sentiment  cannot  be  charged,  it  seems,  to 
either  ignorance  or  depravity,  but  to  a 
feeling  that  the  principle  of  prohibition  is 
not  in  accord  with  the  spirit  of  Christian 
civilization.  Character  must  be  built  up 
through  the  exercise  of  free  choice;  and  to 
get  a  man  to  do  right,  in  this  or  any  other 
matter,  because  of  external  necessity,  be- 

139 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

cause  a  power  outside  of  him  takes  away 
even  the  opportunity  of  doing  wrong, 
while  needful  in  the  training  of  children, 
can  never  be  looked  on  as  the  ideal  condi- 
tions for  producing  a  sturdy  manhood. 
Righteousness  is  this  much  stronger  than 
innocence.  The  individual  is  never  safe 
till  the  innocence  of  childhood  has  devel- 
oped into  the  righteous  character  of 
mature  life,  and  this  comes  to  the  sons  of 
men,  as  it  came  to  the  Son  of  Man,  in 
that  severe  school  of  choice  which  we  call 
temptation. 

If  it  be  argued  that  the  very  need  of 
our  nation  is  something  to  protect  our 
children  from  the  fascinations  of  the 
saloon,  and  something  that  will  remove 
temptation  from  the  way  of  those  who 
though  of  maturer  years  are  yet  so  weak 
that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  stronger  to  see 
that  they  are  not  tempted,  it  may  be 
140 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

answered  that  this  may  be  found  in  some 
method  more  feasible  and  successful  than 
the  past  has  shown  State  Prohibition  to  be. 

HIGH    LICENSE 

Another  solution  which  is  in  great  favor 
with  the  rank  and  file  to-day  is  High 
License,especially  when  this  is  accompanied 
with  legislation  which  limits  the  saloon  to 
a  certain  number  of  inhabitants.  With- 
out doubt  "High  License"  has  a  number  of 
commendable  features.  A  model  law  of 
this  kind  was  enacted  twenty  years  ago  in 
the  state  of  Illinois,  and  the  betterment 
which  it  brought  to  that  state  has  caused 
the  enactment  of  the  same  or  a  similar  law 
in  Wisconsin,  Minnesota,  South  Dakota, 
Iowa,  Nebraska,  Kansas,  Missouri,  Texas, 
Michigan,  Indiana,  Ohio,  Pennsylvania, 
New  York,  Massachusetts  and  New 
Jersey.  What  these  commendable  fea- 
tures are  may  be  seen  in  a  recent  article 
141 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

by  William  H.  Harper,  author  of  the 
lUinois  High  License  Law.  He  claims 
that  this  twenty  years*  test  of  the  law 
shows  the  following  results: 

"Saved  the  city  of  Chicago  from  bank- 
ruptcy. 

"Added  nearly  $50,000,000  to  the 
treasury  funds  of  Chicago. 

"Collected  over  $100,000,000  from  the 
saloons  to  pave,  light,  police,  and  improve 
Chicago  and  other  Illinois  cities  and 
towns. 

"  Drove  thousands  of  the  worst  saloons 
in  the  state  out  of  business. 

"  Killed  the  saloon  question  as  a  politi- 
cal issue." 

These  results  are  of  two  kinds,  financial 
and  political.  If  the  saloon  has  been 
killed  in  Chicago,  or  elsewhere  in  the 
United  States,  as  a  political  issue,  it 
certainly  is  a  lively  corpse. 
142 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

As  to  the  financial  side  of  the  results, 
the  law,  which  permits  any  community  to 
fix  the  price  of  a  license  as  high  as  it  sees 
fit  (it  was  raised  in  Chicago  from  ^52  to 
I500  per  year),  naturally  had  the  effect  of 
reducing  the  number  of  saloons  and  of  in- 
creasing the  city's  income  from  licenses; 
but  over  against  the  1 5 2,000,000  which 
the  saloon  has  brought  into  the  city's 
treasury,  we  must  put  the  1 50,000,000 
which  the  city  has  spent  on  its  police,  and 
the  even  larger  amount  which  it  has  spent 
on  its  criminal  courts  and  jails;  for  we 
must  not  forget  that  statistics  show  that 
ninety-two  per  cent  of  our  crime  is  the 
direct  result  of  intoxicating  liquors.  High 
License  and  the  restriction  of  the  number 
of  saloons  is  far  ahead  of  low  license,  but 
it  is  only  mildly  repressive  at  best,  and, 
as  Mr.  Harper  boasts,  gives  the  Liquor 
business  a  sort  of  semi-respectability. 
H3 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

That  it  has  to  any  extent  "solved  the 
Liquor  problem,"  either  in  Chicago  or  in 
any  other  place  that  has  tried  it,  not  even 
its  most  partisan  advocate  would  dare  to 
claim.  As  a  repressive  or  palliative 
measure,  it  cannot  be  compared  with  Pro- 
hibition even  in  those  states  which  have 
most  winked  at  the  law's  infraction. 

FREE    WHISKEY 

At  the  other  extreme  from  high  license 
is  "Free  Whiskey."  Remove  all  tax  on 
its  manufacture  and  all  restrictions  as  to 
its  sale,  make  whiskey  as  free  as  water, 
and  you  have  done  the  most  that  can  be 
done,  it  is  argued,  to  rob  it  of  its  baneful 
influence.  The  prohibitory  measures  with 
which  its  manufacture  and  sale  are  sur- 
rounded only  add  to  its  fascination, 
especially  to  that  outlawed  class  of  our 
social  order  with  whom  its  use  becomes 
most  pernicious.  Take  the  money  out  of 
144 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

it,  and  you  have  removed  all  inducement 
for  men  to  traffic  in  it;  and,  gradually,  it 
will  take  its  place  with  coffee  or  morphine 
on  the  shelf  of  grocer  and  druggist,  and 
the  excesses  of  its  use  will  disappear. 
What  "Free  Whiskey"  would  mean  may 
be  seen  in  the  alarming  tendency  to 
cocaine  and  morphine  habits  when  the 
sale  of  these  drugs  is  unrestricted.  The 
same  thing  which  makes  us  cage  lions, 
and  keep  razors  and  poisons  out  of  the 
reach  of  children  and  lunatics,  warns  us 
to  throw  safeguards  of  some  kind  about 
the  manufacture  and  sale  of  Liquors. 

LOCAL    OPTION 

One  of  the  most  popular  remedies,  and 
one  of  the  most  effective  in  certain  local- 
ities, is  Local  Option.  It  is  prohibition' 
in  a  small  territory.  A  precinct,  township, 
county  or  town,  or  even  part  of  a  great 
city,  is  given  the  right  to  say  by  a  major- 
J  145 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

ity  vote  whether  or  not  Liquor  shall  be  sold 
there.  The  effectiveness  of  this,  which  is 
due  to  the  smaller  territory  covered, 
making  it  possible  not  only  to  have  a 
sentiment  overwhelmingly  in  favor  of  the 
law,  but  to  detect,  through  individual 
alertness  of  the  citizens  themselves  even 
more  than  by  paid  police,  attempted 
infraction  of  the  law,  has  given  it  wide 
commendation.  While  the  method  has 
been  a  failure  in  many  small  towns,  due 
to  weakness  of  sentiment  in  its  favor,  it 
has  been  a  pronounced  success  in  rural 
districts  and  even  in  residence  sections  of 
large  cities.  A  notable  example  of  the 
latter  is  to  be  found  in  Hyde  Park,  a 
favorite  residence  section  now  in  the 
heart  of  Chicago,  and  covering  a  thickly 
populated  area,  about  three  miles  long 
and  one  mile  wide,  where  the  prohibition 
of  the  sale  of  Liquor  is  effectively  enforced. 
146 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

Local  option  has  made  rapid  headway  of 
late  in  the  South.  One  hundred  and 
thirty  counties  in  Texas  have  lately  voted 
in  favor  of  total  prohibition,  and  fifty-nine 
for  partial  prohibition,  leaving  only  fifty- 
seven  counties  in  the  state  where  Liquor 
is  sold  withovit  restriction.  In  Tennes- 
see, out  of  5,500  cities  and  towns,  only 
eight  have  the  unrestricted  sale  of  Liquor. 
In  Virginia,  Richmond  and  Norfolk  are 
the  only  important  cities  without  prohi- 
bition. In  Georgia,  one  hundred  and 
three  out  of  one  hundred  and  thirty-seven 
counties  are  prohibition.  The  move- 
ment is  also  sweeping  over  North  Carolina. 
So  rapidly  has  local  option  spread  over 
the  South  that  to-day  it  is  claimed  there 
are  more  saloons  in  the  one  state  of  New 
York  than  in  all  the  states  south  of 
the  Ohio  river,  including  Arkansas  and 
Louisiana,  the  figures  being  thirty-four 
H7 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

thousand    as  against  twenty-seven   thou- 
sand. 

The  significance  of  this  is  unmistak- 
able. It  shows  the  success  of  local  op- 
tion, or  of  prohibition  for  small  sections  of 
territory,  for  the  township  and  the  small 
town.  It  is  the  ideal  and  the  only  way 
in  which  to  make  an  effective  prohibition 
state;  capture  the  territory  first  by  small 
parcels  through  the  use  of  local  option. 

LOCAL    OPTION    FAILS    IN    THE    CITY 

But  what  shall  be  done  in  those  large 
towns  and  in  our  great  cities  like  New 
York  and  Chicago  and  Philadelphia  and 
St.  Louis,  where  local  option  has  been  an 
utter  failure,  where  the  population  have 
always  had  Liquor  shops  and  are  deter- 
mined, whatever  laws  may  be  enacted  by 
the  state  legislature,  still  to  have  them? 
We  attempt  the  creation  of  a  temperance 
sentiment  in  vain,  for  the  population  is  in 
148 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

most  cases  too  shifting,  or,  because  of  its 
foreign  character,  too  isolated,  to  allow 
the  influence  to  be  exerted. 

STATE     CONTROL 

The  answer  is  to  be  found  in  state  con- 
trol^ and  the  details  of  the  method  are  to 
be  had  in  a  combination  of  the  Gothen- 
burg system,  now  working  so  effectively 
in  Norway  and  Sweden,  and  the  Dispen- 
sary Law  of  South  Carolina. 

The  Gothenburg  system  may  be  briefly 
described  thus: 

A  company  of  philanthropic  persons, 
who  are  the  friends  of  temperance,  is 
given  a  monopoly  of  the  Liquor  business 
in  the  municipality  adopting  the  system. 
It  pays  for  license  double  the  amount 
paid  by  individual  saloon  keepers  form- 
erly, and  takes  out  not  more  than  one 
license  to  every  two  thousand  people  (the 
limitation  at  present,  in  Massachusetts, 
.    H9 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

for  example,  is  one  to  five  hundred  in 
Boston  and  one  to  one  thousand  else- 
where). This  company  receives  as  profits 
only  four  per  cent,  on  the  money  actually 
invested.  All  additional  profits  are  to  be 
applied  to  objects  of  public  utility, 
libraries,  reading  and  smoking  and  loung- 
ing rooms,  social  halls  where  Liquor  is 
not  sold,  and  the  like. 

This  company's  object  shall  be  to  sell 
as  little  Liquor  as  possible,  operating 
under  legislation  which  limits  the  hours, 
prevents  sale  to  minors  and  drunkards, 
allows  no  Liquor  to  be  drunk  on  the 
premises,  and  sells  only  the  purest  of 
Liquors. 

This  law  which  began  operation  in 
Sweden  in  1865,  though  handicapped  by 
the  fact  that  there  were  many  inn-keepers 
through  the  country  who  possessed  irre- 
vocable life-tenure  licenses,  and  also  that 
150 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

the  law  excepted  wine,  beer  and  ale  from 
its  operation,  wrought  a  revolution  in  that 
land  in  the  amount  of  drunkenness,  and  is 
to-day  operating  as  an  untold  blessing  to 
a  land  which  forty  years  ago  rivalled  even 
Belgium  in  its  drunkenness.  Learning  from 
their  experience,  the  friends  of  the  system 
are  extending  its  scope  to  include  wine, 
beer  and  ale,  in  which  an  enormous 
trade  has  sprung  up,  and  to  which  most 
of  the  present  drunkenness  in  the  land  is 
attributed.  When  these  milder  liquors 
are  put  under  control  of  the  "Samlags," 
the  system  will  multiply  in  effectiveness. 

THE    DISPENSARY    SYSTEM 

To  not  a  few  of  the  good  people  of  our 
country.  South  Carolina  is  not  regarded 
as  the  best  of  states  to  foster  good  govern- 
ment; but  she  is  without  doubt  setting  the 
world  a  splendid  object  lesson  in  her 
Dispensary  System.  The  adoption  of  it 
151 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

was  a  great  surprise  to  the  people  them- 
selves, for  it  was  put  up  merely  as  a  bait 
by  one  of  the  political  parties,  to  catch 
the  temperance  vote. 

The  system  may  be  briefly  described  as 
follows: 

The  state  itself  takes  entire  control  of 
all  whiskey  sold  in  it.  This  control  may 
also  be  extended  to  the  manufacture  of 
Liquors.  The  General  Assembly  of  the 
State,  in  joint  session,  elects  a  Board  of 
Directors,  consisting  of  three  members, 
who  must  be  of  "good  moral  character, 
not  addicted  to  the  use  of  intoxicating 
Liquors  as  a  beverage,"  who  take  entire 
control  of  the  sale  of  Liquor  within  the 
state.  A  Dispensary  Commissioner,  with 
a  salary  of  three  thousand  dollars  a  year, 
is  elected  in  the  same  manner,  as  their 
executive  officer.  The  latter  is  removable 
for  cause  by  the  Governor,  whose  reasons 
152 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

for  removal,  however,  are  subject  to  review 
by  the  General  Assembly.  A  dispensary 
for  the  sale  of  Liquor  In  any  community 
can  be  had  by  one-fourth  of  the  qualified 
voters  petitioning  for  it  and  the  casting  of 
a  majority  of  the  votes  in  favor  of  it  at  a 
special  election  which  this  petition  causes 
to  be  called.  The  dispensaries  are  open 
only  from  sunrise  to  sunset.  The  officer 
in  charge  of  it  is  placed  under  bond  not 
to  sell  out  of  hours,  not  to  allow  Liquor 
to  be  consumed  on  the  premises,  not  to 
sell  to  minors  nor  drunkards,  and  for  sale 
to  the  latter  his  bondsmen  are  liable  for 
damages.  All  Liquors  are  sold  only  in 
sealed  packages,  and  must  bear  the  stamp 
of  the  state  chemist,  who  guarantees  their 
purity.  Each  purchaser  must  sign  an 
application  for  the  Liquors  which  he 
purchases,  and  this  is  filed  by  the  officer 
in  charge  of  the  Dispensary.  The  profits 
153 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

of  the  business,  of  course,  all  go  into  the 
state  treasury,  to  be  used  for  various 
purposes.  Fraudulent  representations  to 
obtain  Liquor  are  punishable  with  heavy 
fines  or  imprisonment.  The  operation  of 
this  law  has  revolutionized  the  Liquor 
business  in  South  Carolina,  though  its  in- 
ception aroused  such  violent  opposition 
from  the  saloon  keepers  as  to  bring  about 
for  a  time  almost  a  civil  war. 

The  following  letter  to  the  writer  speaks 
for  itself: 

My  Dear  Sir: 

Your  communication,  addressed  to 
Hon.  B.  R.  Tillman,  has  been  referred  to 
me  for  reply. 

I  take  pleasure  in  mailing  to  you  under 
separate  cover  a  copy  of  our  Dispensary 
Law,  and  also  a  copy  of  our  last  Annual 
Report  just  issued. 

'54 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

In  addition,  I  beg  to  say  that  the  Dis- 
pensary System  is  the  only  solution  of  the 
Liquor  problem.  We  have  tried  it  and 
it  has  proven  successful  in  our  state. 
You  can  scarcely  see  a  drunken  man  at 
anytime,  and  it  is  steadily  growing  in 
favor,  even  with  our  bitterest  enemies. 
We  are  very  proud  of  our  great  institution^ 
and  hope  to  see  other  states  follow,  or  at 
least  introduce  such  a  system. 

Hoping    that    the    literature    sent    will 
prove  interesting  to  you,  I  am, 
(Diet.)  Yours  very  truly, 

(Copy)  H.  H.  Crum. 

Commissioner. 

THE    EVILS    OF    THE    SALOON 

The  Liquor  business,  as  conducted  at 
present,  has  three  features  which  the  solu- 
tion of  our  problem  must  eliminate. 

I.  The  first  of  these  is  the  element  of 
»55 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

private  profit.  Men  go  into  the  Liquor 
business,  not  because  of  their  innate 
devilish  propensities,  nor  because  they 
want  to  injure  their  fellowmen.  Many 
saloon-keepers,  the  writer  can  say  from 
personal  acquaintance,  are  men  of  good 
moral  habits  and  upright  lives  in  other 
respects,  and  who,  if  engaged  in  some 
other  business,  would  be  looked  on  as 
valuable  members  of  the  community. 
Men  go  into  the  ostracized  business  be- 
cause of  the  money  there  is  to  be  made  in 
it.  Think  of  the  enormous  drink  bill  of 
our  nation,  nearly  one  and  one-quarter 
billions  of  dollars,  and  remember  that  the 
profits  shared  by  manufacturer,  jobber  and 
retail  saloon-keeper  are  from  three  hun- 
dred to  eight  hundred  per  cent.,  and  we 
can  see  why  brewers  and  distillers  become 
so  wealthy,  and  why  thrifty,  industrious 
saloon-keepers  become  large  property 
156 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

holders.  The  laboring  men  of  the  five 
leading  nations  of  the  world,  as  we  have 
already  noticed,  pay  to  the  saloon  keepers 
for  Liquors  three-fifths  as  much  as  they  pay 
to  their  landlords  for  house-rent. 

1.  The  second  feature  is  to  be  found 
in  the  present  accompaniments  of  its  sale. 
These  persuade  men  to  increased  con- 
sumption, and  make  the  saloon  both  the 
rendezvous  and  promoter  of  all  forms  of 
vice. 

The  social  habit,  by  which  each  man 
of,  perhaps,  a  dozen  who  line  up  before 
the  bar  for  drinks,  must  set  up  drinks  for 
all  the  rest  before  they  leave  the  bar, 
causes  a  man  to  drink  from  two  to  twelve 
times  as  much  as  he  would  otherwise. 

The  night  saloon  is  the  gathering  place 
for  the  vicious  of  all  kinds.  The  gam- 
blers are  always  over  or  behind  or  nearby 
a  saloon.  The  thugs  who  live  by  high- 
»57 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

way  robbery  and  assassination  make  it 
their  meeting  place.  It  is  the  spot  where 
the  bedizened  courtezan  entraps  the  un- 
wary, and  most  of  the  prostitutes  of  every 
city  begin  their  downward  career  in  some 
saloon-keeper's  dance  hall  or  private  wine- 
room. 

3.  The  third  feature  is  to  be  found  in 
its  power  in  politics.  Many  of  the  lead- 
ing politicians  in  any  city  or  community 
at  present  are  personally  interested,  in 
some  way  or  other,  in  the  Liquor  busi- 
ness. Saloon-keepers  are  never  in  the 
majority,  in  even  the  worst  of  districts, 
but  they  often  have  such  a  large  following 
as  to  dictate  both  the  nominations  of  a 
caucus  and  the  enactments  of  a  legislature. 
Even  the  enforcement  of  enacted  legisla- 
tion is  often  a  matter  of  their  dictation. 
This  is  what  Lord  Rosebery  referred  to 
in  his  statement  already  quoted,  "If  the 
is8 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

nation  does  not  soon  control  the  Liquor 
traffic,  the  Liquor  traffic  will  control  the 
nation."  The  fact  is  the  saloon  has  so 
largely  debauched  the  civic  conscience  of  a 
great  many  of  our  city  population  that 
they  expect  it  to  take  a  leading  part  in 
politics. 

A  moment's  consideration  will  show 
that  the  solution,  to  any  satisfactory  extent, 
of  the  Liquor  problem  must  take  away 
from  the  business  these  three  features.  It 
must  take  private  profit  out  of  it,  so  men 
will  no  longer  have  inducement  to  enlarge 
the  sales  and  consumption  of  it.  It  must 
rob  it  of  its  power  for  social  evil,  both  as 
to  the  "treating"  habit  and  as  the  promo- 
ter of  vice.  It  must  destroy  the  Liquor 
interest  as  a  political  power. 

THE    CURE    AT    WORK 

Consider,  then,  how  a   combination   of 
the  Dispensary  System  and  the  Gothen- 
159 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

burg    System    may  accomplish   these   re- 
sults. 

I.  State  control  entirely  eliminates  the 
element  of  private  profit.  The  price  of 
Liquor  may  be  reduced  so  as  to  bring 
from  its  sale  only  such  profit  as  any  other 
goods  bring,  or  the  price  may  be  kept  as 
high  as  now.  In  either  case,  the  dispen- 
sary ofiicer  is  on  a  salary.  No  profit 
goes  to  any  individual,  for  all  of  it  is  ex- 
pended on  works  of  public  philanthropy. 
There  is  absolutely  no  inducement  what- 
ever to  the  seller  of  it  to  make  large  sales. 
The  license  of  the  saloon  has  just  the  op- 
posite effect.  The  saloon-keeper  not  only 
has  the  inducement  of  any  other  merchant 
to  sell  large  quantities,  but  we  lay  on  him 
the  license  tax  and  say,  "you  must  sell 
enough  to  pay  that,  too.  Adulterate  your 
Liquors  as  much  as  you  see  fit,  and  get 
all  the  profit  you  can,  but  you  must  pay 
1 60 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

us  our  license  fees  as  well  as  pay  for  your 
goods  and  your  running  expenses."  No 
wonder  that  under  the  present  system,  we 
find  it  difficult  to  prevent  sale  to  minors 
and  drunkards,  and  to  make  the  saloons 
close  at  night,  for  every  dealer  is  under 
pressure  to  sell  all  he  can  and  at  big 
profit.  By  the  state  system  the  profits  of 
the  business  can  be  used  for  all  kinds  of 
public  improvements.  "Make  the  busi- 
ness pay  its  own  way,"  of  course;  but  if 
the  profits  are  all  turned  into  the  state 
treasury,  hospitals  will  be  built  from  them, 
public  libraries  and  reading  rooms  estab- 
lished, social-halls  and  play  grounds  and 
parks  can  be  paid  for  with  what  now  goes 
to  strengthen  the  worst  foe  that  our 
nation  has  to  conquer,  the  vicious  Liquor 
power. 

2.  State  control  robs  the  liquor  business 
of  its  social  attractions.    No  Liquor  can  be 
K  i6i 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

drunk  on  the  premises.  That  sweeps 
away  the  "treating"  habit  with  one 
stroke.  No  side-rooms  or  back-rooms 
or  upper-rooms  or  back-doors  are  al- 
lowed. No  loafing  about  the  Dispensary 
is  permissible,  and  the  saloon  closes  from 
sundown  to  sunrise.  What  a  revolution 
it  will  work  when  the  city  thug  has  no 
saloon  in  which  to  take  refuge;  when  the 
courtesan  has  no  dance-hall,  whose  at- 
mosphere is  foul  with  liquor  and  tobacco, 
in  which  to  debauch  the  youth;  when  the 
sale  of  Liquor  is  as  completely  divorced 
from  all  forms  of  vice,  as  the  purchase  of 
a  dozen  of  oranges  now  is  at  a  fruit  stand. 
No  screens  are  before  the  windows  and 
doors,  and  the  Liquors  sold  are  pure 
Liquors,  examined  and  sealed  by  the  state 
chemist. 

3.  And   no   less   effectively   does   state 
control  remove  the  Liquor  business  from 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

politics.  The  control  of  the  business 
throughout  the  state  is  in  the  hands  of 
three  men  who  must  be  of  good  "moral 
character,  not  addicted  to  the  use  of  intox- 
icating liquors  as  a  beverage."  These 
men  might  well  be  appointed  or  elected 
by  the  judges  of  our  Supreme  Court, 
guaranteeing  their  personal  character  be- 
yond doubt.  How  completely  the  system 
does  destroy  the  political  influence  of  the 
Liquor  interests  may  be  seen  in  its  prac- 
tical working  in  South  Carolina.  As  a 
political  factor  it  has  simply  been  buried. 
No  longer  does  the  Liquor  magnate  step 
in  on  a  political  caucus  and  dictate  the 
nomination  and  platform.  State  control 
has  left  him  without  a  job,  and  he  no 
longer  chirps.^ 

^  It  is  claimed  that  while  the  saloon-keeper  is  no  longer  a  con- 
trolling factor  in  politics  in  South  Carolina,  the  Dispensary  System 
is  "  full  of  politics."  If  this  is  the  case,  it  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  Governor  appoints  the  Dispensary  Commission.  Make  this 
commission  appointable  by  the  Supreme  Court  and  this  defect  will 
be  removed. 

163 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 
THE    PRACTICABILITY    OF    THE    SCHEME 

Can  the  scheme  be  put  into  execution? 
Without  any  doubt.  No  scheme  more 
workable  was  ever  invented.  The  most 
commendable  thing  about  it  is  that  it  is  a 
practicable  measure.  It  is  not  ideal.  The 
ideal  condition  for  any  state  is  the  com- 
plete extermination  of  the  Liquor  busi- 
ness. This  is  a  scheme  to  use  where  that 
cannot  at  present  be  accomplished. 

The  operation  of  this  system  of  state 
control  can  be  secured  the  moment  we 
unite  on  it.  The  Liquor  interests  are  not 
in  the  majority.  Those  who  would  do 
away  with  it  could  outvote  them  at  the 
polls  in  any  county  in  our  land,  and  they 
will  do  it  as  soon  as  they  agree  on  some 
practicable  scheme.  It  is  a  noteworthy 
fact  that  the  bitterest  opposition  to  state 
control  has  come  from  two  extremes,  from 
the  Liquor  men,  on  the  one  hand,  who 
164 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

would  be  put  out  of  business,  and  the  ex- 
treme temperance  party,  on  the  other 
hand,  who  will  have  nothing  to  do  with 
any  palliative  legislation  that  does  not 
utterly  prohibit  the  sale  of  Liquor  in  any 
form.  So  the  man  with  a  puritan  con- 
science, who  ought  to  be  the  back  bone  of 
every  movement  for  man's  moral  and 
religious  betterment,  because  he  could  not 
get  his  complete  ideal  all  at  once,  has 
been  joining  hands  with  his  own  worst  foe 
to  make  stronger  the  shackles  of  our 
nation's  worst  slavery  to  vice.  To  them 
especially,  let  this  word  be  addressed.  Be- 
fore you,  for  the  great  cities  and  towns  of 
our  land,  are  these  two  schemes,  for  the 
control  of  the  Liquor  business,  the  Saloon 
and  the  Dispensary.  Ponder  the  two. 
Neither  is  your  ideal;  but  which  is  nearest 
to  it?  Consider  the  present  destructive 
work  of  the  saloon  and  how  your  refusal 
165 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

to  unite  with  the  great  masses  of  the 
pubHc  on  what  they  consider  a  practicable 
scheme  is  fastening  the  saloon  on  us  more 
firmly  and  aggravating  each  day  its  vicious 
influences,  and  ponder  the  call  to  join 
your  hands  here  to  replace  the  saloon  with 
the  Dispensary.  We  have  had  enough  of 
suffering  from  the  stubbornness  of  conflict- 
ing theories.  Plere  is  one  already  at 
work,  a  vast  improvement  over  anything 
put  at  work  elsewhere.  It  is  high  time 
for  the  idealist  and  the  opportunist  to  join 
hands  here.  As  heaven  cannot  be  gained 
at  a  single  leap,  so  ideal  conditions  in  our 
social  order  cannot  be  realized  in  a  day. 
But  here  opens  a  path  to  the  betterment 
of  present  conditions;  and  only  as  we  live 
up  to  our  present  light  have  we  the  right 
to  expect  that  we  shall  ever  realize  our 
ideal,  a  state  free  from  crime,  a  home  free 
from  poverty,  a  people  free  from  vice. 
1 66 


THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM 

The  day  when  we  exchange  the  Saloon  for 
the  Dispensary  will  lift  us  to  another  hill- 
top in  this  climb. 


167 


MUNICIPAL    GOVERNMENT 


'The  growth  of  the  great  city  is  the  phe- 
nomenon of  history^  and  its  redemption  will 
usher  in  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Its  gates  to- 
day are  ruled  by  prejudice  and  greed,  and 
blackened  with  the  smoke  of  toil  and  themarks 
of  vice;  but  they  will  one  day  change  to 
swinging  pearls  that  bar  no  comer  but  he 
who  works  abomination  and  makes  a  lie.  Its 
streets  to-day  are  full  of  deceit  and  violence 
and  the  slaughtered  souls  of  men ;  but  one 
day  they  will  change  to  gold^  and  be  crowded 
with  the  glory  and  honor  of  the  nations. 

Who  will  be  one  of  the  ^^ righteous"  men, 
that  will  save  the  city? 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   PROBLEM   OF  THE  CITY 

The  growth  of  the  modern  city  has 
been  one  of  the  most  striking  things  about 
the  past  century.  The  United  States  one 
hundred  years  ago  had  only  six  cities  of 
eight  thousand  inhabitants  and  over.  Now 
it  has  over  five  hundred  of  that  size,  and 
they  contain  from  one-fourth  to  one-third 
of  our  entire  population. 

It  took  New  York  one  hundred  and 
seventy-five  years,  from  its  founding  in 
1 6 14,  to  gain  thirty-three  thousand  in- 
habitants, but  in  the  twenty  years  follow- 
ing 1870,  it  gained  nearly  one  million;  and 
171 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

the  growth  of  Chicago  and  New  York  in 
population  during  the  past  thirty  years  has 
been  one  of  the  wonders  of  human  history. 
We  are  accustomed  to  account  for  this 
rapid  growth  of  our  large  cities  by  the  for- 
eign immigration  which  has  poured  into 
them  from  the  old  world.  This  tide  has 
been  enormous,  and  the  foreign-born  or 
children  of  foreign-born  are  the  big  ma- 
jority in  our  largest  cities.  But  the  question 
would  still  remain,  even  were  the  growth 
due  to  this,  why  have  these  immigrants 
flocked  to  the  cities  instead  of  settling  on 
the  rich  farming  land  that  was  open  to  them 
at  such  low  prices  or  even  to  be  worked 
on  shares?  The  fact  is,  this  is  not  the 
cause  of  the  growth,  for  this  marvelous  in- 
crease is  not  confined  to  the  cities  of  the 
New  World.  While  the  population  of 
France  as  a  whole  shows  signs  of  decrease, 
Paris  is  four  times  as  large  as  it  was  in 
172 


MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT 

1800  and  during  the  past  ten  years  has 
grown  eighteen  per  cent.  London  is 
probably  two  thousand  years  old,  yet  four- 
fifths  of  its  growth  took  place  in  the  nine- 
teenth century,  and  it  has  grown  twenty 
per  cent,  in  the  past  ten  years.  St.  Peters- 
burg has  nearly  trebled  its  population  in 
the  last  seventy-five  years,  and  Berlin  for 
the  sixty  years  preceding  1 900  outstripped 
the  growth  of  New  York.  Odessa  is  one 
thousand  years  old,  but  nineteen-twentieths 
of  its  population  was  gained  during  the 
past  century,  and  the  population  of  Cal- 
cutta has  increased  nearly  five  hundred 
per  cent,  in  the  past  seventy-five  years. 

The  following  table  of  statistics  shows 
the  growth  in  population  of  the   leading 

cities  of  the  world  from  1890  to  1900: 

1890  1900 

Chicago 1, 191,922  i>838,735 

New  York  proper 1,441,216  1,850,093 

Greater  New  York 2,799,242  3j 8 34,999 

^73 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

1890  1900 

Philadelphia 1,005,277  1,369,632 

St.  Petersburg 954,400(1897)  1,132,667 

Vienna  (1894) 1,480,572  (1899)  1,639,811 

Berlin   (1893) 1,640,994  1,884,157 

Paris  (1896) 3,308,007  3>599.99i 

London  (1891) 5,663,806  6,652,145 

The  rate  of  increase  for  the  decade  has 
been  for  London  twenty  per  cent. ;  Greater 
New  York,  thirty-seven  per  cent.;  Paris, 
eighteen  per  cent.;  Berlin,  twelve  per  cent.; 
Philadelphia,  twenty-three  per  cent.;  St. 
Petersburg,  fifteen  and  five-tenths  per 
cent.;  Vienna,  eleven  per  cent.;  and  Chi- 
cago, fifty-four  per  cent.  The  population 
of  Chicago  is  growing  twice  as  rapidly  as 
that  of  any  city  in  the  world,  except  Greater 
New  York. 

THE   CAUSES  OF  THE  CITY 

The  growth  of  the  modern  city  is  not 
due  to  foreign  immigration,  but,  as  has 
been    pointed  out  by  Josiah  Strong  and 

174 


MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT 

other  writers  on  this  subject,  to  causes  that 
are  rooted  in  the  very  heart  of  our  mod- 
ern civiHzation. 

The  first  of  these  is  the  application  of 
machinery  to  agriculture.  This  has  made 
it  possible  for  one  man  to  do  the  work  on 
a  farm  which  once  taxed  the  energies  of 
four  men.  The  consequence  is  that  three 
out  of  every  four  boys  who  once  remained 
to  work  the  farm  now  go  to  the  city  to  find 
a  means  of  livelihood. 

The  second  is  the  application  of  ma- 
chinery to  manufacturing.  The  shoes  of 
a  community  are  no  longer  made  by  the 
village  shoemakers ;  the  enormous  shoe 
factories,  massing  thousands  of  operatives 
and  all  kinds  of  improved  machinery  under 
one  roof,  has  left  the  village  shoemaker 
nothing  but  "mending"  to  do.  The  "fac- 
tory" can  make  as  good  a  product  as 
the  individual  and  at  far  less  cost,  because 
^7S 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

of  the  massing  of  men  and  raw  material  at 
one  place,  the  improved  machinery  used, 
and  the  large  output  which  is  handled. 

Now,  it  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  while 
the  application  of  machinery  to  agriculture 
has  decreased  the  number  of  people  en- 
gaged in  it,  the  application  of  machinery 
to  manufacturing  has  enormously  increased 
the  number  engaged  in  it.  But  a  moment's 
consideration  will  show  the  reason  for  it. 
There  is  a  natural  limit  to  the  amount  of 
agricultural  products  which  the  nation  can 
consume,  but  there  is  no  limit  practically 
to  the  number  and  variety  of  manufactured 
articles  which  one  may  consume.  Our 
generation  consumes  no  more  food  than 
did  our  grandfathers,  in  many  cases,  be- 
cause of  differences  of  vocation  and  phys- 
ical endowment,  far  less ;  but  a  comparison 
of  the  houses  of  the  two  generations,  their 
clothing,  and  the  commodities  of  life  with 
176 


MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT 

which  they  surround  themselves  will  show 
a  vast  difference.  Indeed,  a  German  in- 
vestigator of  this  subject  has  published 
statistics  which  show  that  as  a  man  increases 
in  wealth  and  culture  of  mind,  the  propor- 
tion of  his  income  which  he  spends  on  his 
food  decreases  and  that  which  he  spends 
on  the  furnishings  of  life,  house,  bric-a- 
brac,  furniture,  jewelry,  et  cetera^  increases. 
Then  the  application  of  machinery  to  man- 
ufacturing has  greatly  decreased  the  cost  of 
manufactured  products,  and  this  always 
stimulates  consumption. 

The  third  cause,  without  which  neither 
of  these  would  have  been  effective,  was 
the  application  of  steam  and  electricity  to 
transportation.  Only  in  this  way  was 
it  possible,  not  only  to  center  workmen 
and  raw  material  on  which  to  employ  them 
about  one  common  plant,  but  also,  what  is 
of  more  importance,  to  bring  to  the  thou- 
L  177 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

sands  thus  massed  together  the  products 
of  farm  and  dairy  for  their  subsistence. 
The  greatest  factor  in  producing  the  mod- 
ern city  is,  without  doubt,  the  modern 
railroad.  Industrial  centers  are  converg- 
ing points  of  great  trunk  lines  of  railroad; 
and  the  growth  of  a  city  has  usually  been 
measured  by  the  number  and  importance 
of  the  transportation  lines  converging 
there. 

THE  CITY   HERE  TO   STAY" 

These  causes  are  plainly  as  permanent 
as  is  our  very  civilization ;  and  being 
caused  by  these  things,  the  city  is  here  to 
stay.  Whatever  of  evil  or  good  the  mod- 
ern city  has,  it  is  not  ephemeral.  Its  con- 
gested life  and  bad  sanitation,  its  hotbeds 
of  vice  and  its  fields  and  forces  of  philan- 
thropy and  virtue,  its  industrial  and  social 
disorders,  are  not  things  which  the  mere 
process  of  time  will  remove.  Time  will 
178 


MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT 

no  more  cure  the  evil  influences  of  the  city 
than  time  will  eradicate  weeds  and  briars 
from  a  field  or  drain  a  deadly  marsh.  The 
city  has  come  to  stay  ;  and  left  to  itself 
it  will  become  increasingly  a  hotbed  of  vice, 
a  breeder  of  moral  and  physical  death. 

THE    MENACE    OF    TOMORROW 

Still  worse:  unless  the  evils  of  the  city 
are  speedily  met  in  our  land,  not  only  will 
they  become  more  aggravated,  but  they 
will  bring  under  their  baneful  sweep  the 
control  of  the  entire  country.  The  in- 
fluence of  the  city  is  already  enormous ; 
but  it  is  little  to-day  compared  with 
what  it  may  become.  Our  country  is  a 
republic,  which  means  not  only  that  our 
government  is  carried  on  through  the 
people's  chosen  representatives,  but  that 
the  majority  of  the  voters  determine  who 
these  representatives  shall  be.  To-day 
our  cities  of  eight  thousand  inhabitants 
179 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

and  over  contain  less  than  one-third  of 
our  entire  population.  The  inhabitants 
of  the  smaller  towns  and  the  country  are 
in  the  majority.  Our  state  legislatures 
to-day  can  control  our  cities,  direct  munic- 
ipal legislation,  check  extravagance,  expose 
corruption,  uproot  evil,  transform  the 
entire  government  of  a  city.^ 

But  if  the  recent  growth  and  movement 
of  our  population  city-ward  continues  till 
1920,  and  there  is  every  reason  to  suppose 
it  will,  the  cities  of  eight  thousand  and 
over  will  then  contain  ten  millions  more 
of  people  than  the  rest  of  the  country. 
The  tables  will  then  be  reversed,  and  the 
city's  representatives  in  state  legislatures, 
notoriously  the  easiest  to  bribe,  and  the 
poorest  in  legislative  ability,  will  dictate 
the  legislation  of  the  entire  state.  And 
the  same  will  be  true  in  the  United  States 

^As  the  legislature  of  Pennsylvania  recently  did  in  the  city  of 
Pittsburg. 

180 


MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT 

Congress.  The  difficulty  of  the  city 
problem  under  that  condition  will  almost 
defy  solution.  In  view  of  this,  the 
problem  of  the  city  is  one  which  calls  for 
speedy  and  radical  action. 

WHAT    IS    THE    "cITY"    PROBLEM? 

But  let  us  understand  what  we  mean  by 
"the  problem  of  the  city."  The  city  is 
the  industrial  center  today,  but  the  indus- 
trial problem  has  its  separate  consideration 
under  the  head  of  the  "Labor  Problem." 
The  city  is  especially  the  home  of  the 
saloon,  but  we  consider  that  under  the 
"Liquor  Problem".  In  fact,  because  life 
there  is  at  its  intensest,  the  city  has  pre- 
eminently all  the  problems  connected  with 
our  twentieth  century  civilization.  But 
the  problem  of  the  city,  as  it  is  to  be 
discussed  here,  is  the  problem  of  city 
government.  Not  only  is  it  impossible  to 
make  any  headway  in  working  out  a  solu- 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

tion  of  the  many  other  problems  of  the 
city  till  we  have  worked  out  this  one;  but 
the  working  out  of  this  will  make  com- 
paratively easy  the  solution  of  the  rest. 
The  housing  problem,  urban  transporta- 
tion, the  social  evil,  gambling  and  high- 
way robbery,  pure  food,  the  smoke 
nuisance,  the  water  supply, — the  proper 
handling  of  all  these  and  their  like  hangs 
on  the  question  of  municipal  government. 
Our  country  has  had  two  eminent 
foreigners  visit  it  and  write  upon  its  insti- 
tutions works  that  have  become  classics 
in  our  study  of  government.  One  of 
them  was  a  Frenchman  and  the  other  an 
Englisman.  It  is  a  fact  for  us  to  ponder 
that  both  M.  de  Tocqueville,  who  visited 
our  country  a  hundred  years  ago,  and  Mr. 
James  Bryce,  M.  P.,  who  has  studied 
our  country  and  written  one  of  the  finest 
commentaries  extant  on  our  constitution, 
182 


MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT 

both  look  on  the  American  city  as  the 
greatest  peril  to  the  American  republic. 
Let  us  neither  forget  nor  ignore  the  fact 
that  the  municipal  government  of  our 
large  cities  is  notoriously  the  weakest  spot 
and  greatest  menace  in  our  national  life. 
No  serious  minded  lover  of  his  country 
will  shut  his  eyes  to  the  danger-signals. 

THE    CITY    AS    IT    IS 

The  present  conditions  are  not  only  a 
menace;  in  many  cases  they  are  a  deep 
disgrace.  It  is  very  easy  for  club-mem- 
bers to  gather  around  a  banquet  table, 
and  amid  the  clink  of  glasses  and  the 
gurgle  of  champagne,  let  city  officials  per- 
suade them  that  there  is  nothing  to  be 
wrought  up  over;  but  a  glance  at  the 
daily  the  next  morning,  and  the  testimony 
of  the  all  night  reporter,  and  the  investi- 
gations of  a  conscientious  prosecutor,  tell 
a  very  different  story. 
183 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

Each  city  has  its  own  disgrace.  St. 
Louis  has  her  gang  of  boodlers  and  her 
"prominent  citizens"  directing  her  great 
corporations  who  are  glad  to  make  use  of 
them.  New  York  has  her  Tammany, 
caged  for  a  season,  only  to  be  let  loose 
when  the  tiger's  appetite  has  been  whetted 
by  a  short  retirement.  Chicago's  scepter 
is  so  completely  wielded  by  the  brewers 
and  saloon-keepers,  that  it  is  the  favored 
city  of  the  thug  and  thief  and  gambler,  a 
"wide-open"  town  because  it  has  a  Mayor 
who  listens  to  the  crowd  that  makes  the 
loudest  clamor. 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  GOOD  GOVERNMENT 

First  of  all,  then,  let  us  understand  ex- 
actly the  problem  that  is  before  us.  Our 
task  is  to  wrest  the  control  of  the  city 
from  the  saloon-keeper  and  boodler,  from 
the  man  who  is  in  politics  for  the  money 
he  can  get  out  of  it;  and  place  at  its  head 
184 


MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT 

the  best  type  of  our  citizenship,  who  will 
administer  its  affairs  economically  and 
honestly,  as  a  purely  business  concern, 
for  the  common  welfare  of  all  its  people. 

THE    QUESTION    OF    THE    HOUR 

How  can  this  be  done?  The  blindest 
of  us  must  see  that  the  great  city  in  our 
country  to-day  is  full  of  violence  and 
strife.  That  day  and  night  thug  and  thief 
go  about  it,  making  often  times  its  police, 
who  should  be  its  wall  of  defence,  their 
helpers  in  crime  and  the  sharers  of  their 
booty.  Wickedness  is  in  the  midst  of  it, 
and  deceit  and  guile  depart  not  from  its 
streets.^  Even  the  most  self-satisfied  of 
us  must  feel  the  need  of  a  better  order, 
but  how  shall  we  get  it?  Who  will  bring 
us  into  the  strong  city?^ 

First  of  all,  let  a  word  be  said  about 
how   it  will   not  come.     It  will  not  come 

'  Cf.  Psalm  55:9-11. 
2Cf.  Ps.  60:9. 

185 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

by  multiplying  the  number  or  increasing 
the  individual  avoirdupois  of  our  police 
force.  As  crime  and  graft  increase  in  a 
great  city,  the  first  thought  of  its  average 
resident  is  that  we  need  more  policemen. 
In  times  of  extreme  disorder,  we  turn  to 
the  military.  This  is  the  method  of  a 
monarchy,  to  quell  disorder  by  military 
force;  but  the  effort  to  get  a  well-governed 
city  by  the  intimidating  presence  of  the 
military  has  always  been  futile,  and  it  al- 
ways will  be.  Though  we  multiplied  the 
number  of  our  policemen  till  we  could 
even  find  one  when  we  needed  him,  and 
increased  their  individual  bulk  till  each 
was  as  big  as  Edward  Martini,^  our  effort 
would  be  futile  in  securing  a  well  gov- 
erned city.  The  thing  will  not  come 
through  dressing   men  in   blue  cloth  and 

'Chicago's  famous  big  policeman,  who  died  In  1902,  and  was 
known  as  "  The  biggest  policeman  in  the  world."  He  weighed 
about  400  pounds,  and  was  nearly  6^  feet  high, 

186 


MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT 

brass  buttons,  and  arming  them  with  either 
batons  or  "Winchester  rifles.  The  larger 
the  number  of  poHcemen  or  miHtary  that 
a  city  must  have  to  enforce  law  or  keep 
order,  the  poorer  does  it  thereby  confess 
its  government  to  be,  and  the  less  ability 
does  it  show  to  govern  itself. 

Nor  shall  we  get  a  well  governed  city 
by  tinkering  with  the  city  charter.  Our 
large  cities  have  tried  a  division  of  power 
between  an  upper  and  lower  house  and  a 
chief  executive ;  they  have  tried  dividing  it 
between  one  house  of  aldermen  and  the 
chief  executive,  and  they  have  tried  the 
centralization  of  power  in  one  man,  the 
mayor,  and  the  results  have  all  had  one 
striking  and  common  characteristic — bad. 
Whatever  the  form  of  the  city  charter,  the 
government  of  the  city  has  speedily  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  the  "old  gang"  or  a  new 
gang  as  thoroughly  depraved  and  more 
187 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

keen  witted;  and  the  reign  of  vice  and  th.. 
waste  of  the  people's  money,  and  the  mis- 
management of  the  city's  pubHc  utilities 
have  continued.  The  latest  proposition  is 
to  replace  the  present  mayor  and  city 
council  with  a  body  of  three  or  five  com- 
missioners, elected  by  the  people,  or  the 
members  of  the  supreme  court,  or  ap- 
pointed by  the  Governor  of  the  State,  and 
give  over  the  entire  government  of  the 
city  into  their  hands.  Undoubtedly  the 
best  governed  city  in  the  United  States  is 
governed  in  this  way,^  and  the  experiment 
as  now  being  tried  by  Galveston,  Texas, 
gives  great  promise.  But  either  this  or 
any  other  form  of  government  which  re- 
lies upon  the  machinery  itself  to  produce 
good  city  government,  will  meet  with  fail- 
ure.    The  best  of  guns  will  fall  into  the 


'  The  city  of  Washington,   D.   C,   which  is  governed  by  the 
District  Commissioners,  elected  by  the  U.  S.  Senate. 

i88 


MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT 

hands  of  poor  marksmen,  and  the  best  of 
city  charters  have  a  way  of  dove-tailing  in 
with  the  methods  of  the  demagogue  and  the 
boodler. 

Nor  will  relief  come  through  the  en- 
abling acts  of  increased  legislation.  Some 
cities  may  need  more  liberal  charters,  but 
increase  of  liberty  often  serves  only  to  sup- 
ply the  needed  rope  with  which  the  city 
either  hangs  or  binds  to  a  worse  slavery 
the  little  minority  of  public-spirited  men 
who  are  laboring  for  better  conditions.  We 
are  spending  much  discussion  these  days 
on  public  ownership  and  the  referendum, 
and  the  wisdom  of  giving  cities  absolute 
self  government.  The  ill  or  good  in  these 
measures  is  dependent  entirely  on  the 
character  of  the  city's  population.  Being 
what  it  is  to-day,  the  city  could  hardly 
fall  on  a  worse  fate  than  to  secure  these 
things.  The  population  of  the  average 
189 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

city  is  still  a  child  in  both  wisdom  of  choice 
and  the  exercise  of  self-control;  and  in 
not  a  few  cases  vice,  unmasked  and  hid- 
eous, is  one  of  the  most  influential  forces 
in  shaping  conduct. 

THE    NEED    OF    THE    CITY 

What  can  be  done  to  save  the  munici- 
pal government  of  our  cities?  What  do 
we  need  to  do? 

First,  we  need  to  divorce  municipal 
government  from  party  politics,  and  treat 
it  as  a  purely  business  affair. 

One  of  the  most  stupid  and  disastrous 
blunders  in  our  national  history  has  been 
the  persistent  alignment  of  the  voters  in 
the  city  along  party  lines  on  purely 
municipal  questions.  Why  should  party 
poHtics  have  anything  whatever  to  do 
with  our  choice  of  municipal  officials? 
What  has  the  tariff,  or  the  gold  standard 
and  free  silver,  or  imperialism,  or  states 
190 


MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT 

rights,  or  the  income  tax,  to  do  with  the 
local  government  of  a  city  ? 

To  maintain  a  public  school  system  and 
courts  of  justice,  to  provide  an  ample  and 
excellent  water  supply  and  a  good  light- 
ing system,  to  give  clean  and  well-paved 
streets  and  the  best  of  intra-rural  transpor- 
tation, to  preserve  law  and  order,  for  the 
common  good  of  all  its  people, — this  is 
the  work  of  a  municipal  government. 
What  more  should  party  politics  have  to 
do  with  these  things  than  with  the  man- 
agement of  your  church  or  the  domestic 
affairs  of  your  home?  The  conduct  of  a 
city's  government  is  a  purely  business 
affair,  and  so  we  must  build  a  strong  and 
efficient  city  government  just  as  we  build 
up  any  other  business.  What  difference 
does  it  make  to  a  corporation  whether  its 
treasurer  is  a  democrat  or  a  republican, 
provided  he  keeps  his  books  accurately 
191 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

and  does  not  steal  the  company's  money? 
Party  politics  should  have  just  as  little  to 
do  in  deciding  who  shall  be  our  mayor  or 
representative  in  the  city  council. 

Our  best  city  officials  are  always  picked 
business  men.  Our  mayor  should  be 
chosen,  not  for  oratorical  gifts,  much  less 
for  his  political  or  social  prominence,  but 
solely  for  his  integrity  of  character  and 
business  ability.  The  man  who  can  effi- 
ciently conduct  the  government  of  a  great 
city  is  not,  as  a  rule,  the  professional  man, 
whether  he  be  lawyer,  teacher,  or  preacher; 
but  a  practical  business  man,  who  can 
master  the  intricate  details  of  a  great  en- 
terprise, and  deal  with  actual  conditions, 
such  a  man  as  can  conduct  successfully  a 
great  industrial  concern  or  department 
store.  When  we  cease  putting  in  our 
municipal  offices  the  leaders  or  tools  of  a 
political  party,  and  seek  for  our  representa- 
192 


MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT 

tives  among  the  ranks  of  successful  busi- 
ness men,  one  mighty  stride  will  have 
been  made  towards  a  well  governed  city. 

A    CIVIC  CONSCIENCE 

In  the  second  place,  the  redemption  of 
the  city  from  bad  government  calls  for  the 
creation  in  the  individual  citizen  of  a  civic 
conscience.  That  is  something  which 
most  "reputable"  citizens  of  the  average 
city  do  not  possess.  We  have  a  con- 
science. We  would  not  steal  a  horse, 
some  of  us  would  not  steal  a  railroad,  and 
some  of  us  would  not  even  beat  our  way 
on  the  street  car  or  tell  a  lie  about  our 
tax  assessment;  but  the  moral  perceptions 
of  most  of  us  are  very  obtuse  when  it 
comes  to  our  civic  duties.  Even  in  so 
important  a  matter  as  the  choice  of  a 
judiciary,  the  man  who  feels  a  real  remorse 
over  his  failure  to  vote  at  the  primary 
would  be  an  attraction  for  a  museum.  It 
M  193 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

is  seldom  the  average  citizen  to-day  seeks 
any  voice  in  choosing  the  candidates  for 
city  offices,  or  is  at  any  pains  to  acquaint 
himself  with  their  different  characteristics 
after  they  are  nominated.  In  many  cases, 
the  voter  does  not  exercise  his  franchise  at 
all;  and  in  many  more  he  votes  for  the 
candidates  of  whom  some  political  ac- 
quaintance or  friend  is  an  ardent  supporter. 
When  corruption  and  mal-administration 
come  to  light  in  the  official  career  of  the 
successful  candidate,  this  "reputable" 
citizen  grows  eloquent  in  denouncing  the 
"corruption  in  politics"  and  the  "rotten- 
ness" at  the  City  Hall,  forgetting  that 
those  conditions  are  largely  due  to  the 
neglect  of  him  and  his  like  to  exercise  an 
intelligent  franchise. 

If  the  misgovernment  of  our  American 
cities  is   ever  to  end,  this  civic  conscience 
must    be    developed    in     our    reputable 
194 


MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT 

citizens.  They  must  be  brought  to  feel 
a  personal  responsibility  for  any  corrup- 
tion or  mismanagement  in  their  city's 
government;  and  that  it  is  just  as  deep 
a  disgrace  to  have  in  their  city  council 
such  men  as  "Hinky-Dink"  Kenna  and 
"Johnnie"  Powers,  and  "Eddie"  Novak 
and  "dear-midnight-of-love"  Coughlan, 
as  to  have  them  directors  of  the  trust 
company  to  whom  they  entrust  their 
estates  for  their  children  or  trustees  of  the 
church  in  which  they  worship  God.  The 
redemption  of  our  cities  from  misrule 
waits  for  a  generation  of  men  whose  civic 
conscience  will  measure  up  to  their  civic 
responsibilities. 

In  the  third  place,  to  rescue  our  cities 
from  misgovernment,  we  must  determine 
that  the  ideals  which  we  seek  to  realize  in 
our  municipal  life  shall  rise  above  the 
desires  of  the  rabble.  It  is  a  common 
195 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

thing  to-day  for  the  city  executive  to  yield 
to  the  people  that  make  the  most  noise. 
Indeed  the  mayor  of  one  of  the  largest 
cities  in  the  United  States  has  given  this 
out  as  his  distinct  policy.  Great  pride  is 
expressed  by  certain  classes  of  men  over 
their  city  being  a  "cosmopolitan"  city, 
and  with  an  air  of  much  self-importance, 
they  announce  that  such  a  great  city 
should  not  be  run  along  the  narrow 
policies  of  a  provincial  town.  "We  have 
an  enormous  foreign  population.  They 
come  to  us  from  all  parts  of  the  world, 
and  have  not  been  accustomed  to  many  of 
our  puritanical  notions.  It  is  the  business 
of  the  city  officials  to  take  this  into 
account  and  give  to  these  elements  of  our 
population  the  things  to  which  they  have 
been  accustomed." 

The  folly  of  this   plea  is  self-evident, 
but  the  force  of  it  with   the   average   city 
196 


MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT 

official  is  as  great  as  its  folly;  for  the  vote 
of  the  most  ignorant  naturalized  foreigner 
counts  as  much  for  his  election  as  that  of 
the  most  ardent  supporter  of  American 
institutions.  It  needs  to  be  clearly  under- 
stood that  the  duty  of  any  official  in  a 
republic,  whether  he  be  city,  state,  or 
national,  is  to  give  his  constituency  what 
they  ought  to  have,  rather  than  what  they 
want;  and  his  being  in  that  official  posi- 
tion is  due  to  the  fact  that  he  is  better 
able  to  decide  what  measures  will  make 
for  the  public  good  than  the  people  them- 
selves in  popular  assembly  would  be  able 
to  do. 

It  is  the  cry  of  the  political  demagogue 
to  "give  the  people  what  they  want;"  and 
to  allow  in  a  city  Sunday  beer-gardens 
and  prize-fights,  immoral  street  fairs  and 
gambling  dives,  opium  joints  and  the  all- 
night  saloon,  to  run  a  "wide  open  town," 
197 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

such  as  New  York  always  is  under  Tam- 
many or  as  Chicago  well  nigh  is  under 
Mayor  Harrison,  simply  because  the 
people  who  are  making  the  most 
noise  clamor  for  it,  is  pandering  to 
the  base  passions  of  the  rabble  instead 
of  striving  for  the  high  ideals  of  the  best. 
Just  as  we  shall  never  get  the  ideal  public 
school  till  we  cease  taking  our  ideals  from 
the  people  that  have  fewest  ideas;  so  we 
shall  never  get  a  well  governed  city  till 
we  cease  taking  our  standards  from  the 
people  of  lowest  morals.  It  is  not  the 
mission  of  the  cities  of  America  to  repeat 
the  blunders  and  perpetuate  the  immoral- 
ities and  vices  of  the  cities  of  the  old 
world.  It  is  the  mission  of  the  American 
city  to  realize  the  American  ideal.  The 
highest  civil  authority  in  our  land  has 
declared  that  by  our  very  constitution 
this  is  a  Christian  nation,  and  every 
198 


MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT 

citizen  has  a  right  to  demand  that  the 
officials  of  his  city  conduct  its  affairs  on 
Christian  principles.  Not  what  the  rabble 
wants,  but  what  the  people  need  should 
be  the  aim  of  every  government. 

"the  men  behind  the  guns" 
Last,  and  perhaps  most  important  of 
all,  the  redemption  of  our  American  cities 
from  misrule  calls  for  the  entrance  into 
municipal  politics  of  our  men  of  mature 
business  experience  and  irreproachable 
character.  The  misrule  of  our  cities  is  a 
thing  which  many  men  have  long  pon- 
dered; and  the  conviction  is  happily  grow- 
ing on  the  general  public  that  the  secret 
of  it  lies  after  all  in  the  type  of  men  who 
control  the  "poHtical  machine"  and  the 
character  of  those  whom  they  put  into 
office.  A  "political  machine"  may  be  a 
necessary  evil,  as  the  politicians  claim;  but 
certainly  it  is  not  necessary  that  this 
199 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

machine  should  be  continuously  worked 
by  those  least  capable  of  it  from  the  stand- 
point of  either  morals  or  business  ability. 
We  need  better  men  in  control  of  the 
city  government,  men  of  business  ability 
and  irreproachable  moral  character,  men 
who  will  be  faithful  to  their  duties,  men  of 
honor  who  will  neither  lie  nor  steal.  It 
has  been  repeatedly  intimated  that  the  best 
way  in  which  to  secure  this  is  to  increase 
the  salary  of  the  city  officials.  So  far  as 
salary  affects  the  matter,  the  experience  in 
America  goes  to  show  that  the  higher  the 
salary  attached  to  the  office,  the  greater 
the  rascal  who  finally  gets  into  it,  and  the 
experience  of  Great  Britain  shows  that  the 
best  of  all  policies  is  to  attach  no  salary 
whatever  to  these  offices.  The  salary  is 
the  bait  in  America  which  draws  a  greedy 
and  corrupt  officiary. 

Before  the  municipal  problem   can   be 


MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT 

solved,  we  must  choose  our  officials  from 
the  best  Instead  of,  as  is  frequently  the 
case  now,  from  the  worst  element  of  our 
population.  Here  is  to  be  found  the 
most  striking  difference  between  the  cities 
of  America  and  those  of  Great  Britain. 
The  Lord  Mayor  of  London  who 
welcomed  Lord  Roberts  on  his  triumphal 
return  from  South  Africa,  was  one  of 
Great  Britain's  most  prominent  manufac- 
turers; and  he  carried  to  the  Executive 
chair  of  his  city  not  only  the  business 
ability  which  had  made  him  one  of  his 
country's  most  successful  masters  of  in- 
dustry, but  a  technical  training  in  the 
details  of  city  government  which  he  had 
gained  in  his  continuous  service  in  the 
city  council. 

Think  what  it  will  mean  for  the  cities 
of  America  when  their  great  leaders  in  in- 
dustry and  business  are  willing  to  sacrifice 

20I 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

their  personal  financial  interests  to  have 
the  honor  of  thus  serving  their  city,  even 
without  salary. 

To  secure  this,  calls  not  only  for  the 
willingness  of  such  men  to  fill  these  public 
offices  as  places  of  highest  honor,  but  the 
active  participation  in  political  affairs  of  a 
constituency  who  will  appreciate  their 
services.  One  of  the  best  things  that 
could  come  to  the  city  of  Chicago,  for  ex- 
ample, would  be  to  place  such  a  man  as 
Cyrus  H.  McCormick  in  the  Mayor's 
chair;  but  not  even  the  most  visionary 
would  dare  to  hope  that,  even  should  Mr. 
McCormick  be  willing  to  make  the  per- 
sonal sacrifice,  he  could  receive  enough 
votes,  as  Chicago's  municipal  politics  are 
now  conducted,  to  elect  him  to  that  posi- 
tion. 

The  need  of  the  hour  is  not  only  for 
our  prominent  business  men  to  forego  a 


MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT 

few  years  of  money-making  and  give  their 
mature  business  experience  to  the  rule  of 
our  cities,  but  the  active  participation  of 
the  rank  and  file  of  our  best  citizens  in  the 
control  of  the  political  machine.  Past  ex- 
perience and  present  indications  point  to 
the  wisdom  of  making  all  purely  adminis- 
trative municipal  offices,  such  as  Mayor 
and  aldermen,  as  well  as  school  commis- 
sioners and  all  executive  boards,  without 
any  salary  whatever.  The  honor  of  the 
office  would  be  its  sole  attraction;  and  just 
as  this  alone  secured  the  best  commanding 
generaP  our  nation  ever  had,  so  it  would 
doubtless  work  here;  and  the  city  would 
secure  men  to  conduct  public  affairs 
who  had  already  shown  their  ability  by 
making  a  success  of  their  private  business. 
These  four  things  are  not  all  that  the 

'  George  Washington  accepted  the  position  of  Commander-in- 
Chief  of  the  American  army  in  the  Revolutionary  War  on  con- 
dition that  no  salary  whatever  should  be  attached  to  the  office. 

203 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

American  city  needs  to-day ;  but  they  blaze 
a  way  to  redemption  from  misrule  which 
will  lead  us,  if  faithfully  followed,  to  an 
ideal  city. 

Spasmodic  efforts  at  reform  leave  the 
root  of  the  matter  untouched,  and  pass 
away  soon  to  leave  conditions  aggravated 
and  deeper  despair  of  permanent  better- 
ment. We  m.ust  have  a  civic  awakening 
that  does  not  depend  on  the  hortatory  re- 
marks of  the  political  orator  or  the  per- 
sistent attention  of  party  whips,  but 
springs  from  the  creation  of  a  strong  civic 
conscience  in  the  individual. 

Let  us  learn  to  feel  both  responsibility 
for  present  conditions  and  civic  pride  in 
our  city's  development.  Let  us  find  some 
other  use  for  our  city  and  its  teeming 
thousands  than  merely  as  a  place  in  which 
to  make  money.  Let  us  enlist,  not 
simply  for  an  approaching  election,  but  for 
204 


MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT 

good  and  all  in  the  ranks  of  civic  right- 
eousness, to  drive  deceit  and  violence  out  of 
our  city,  the  thug  and  thief  from  our 
streets,  and  the  boodler  and  saloon-keeper 
from  our  legislative  halls  and  executive 
chair;  and,  by  and  by,  we  shall  see,  if  not 
a  city  with  gates  of  pearl  and  streets  of 
gold,  at  least  a  city  that  can  boast  of  more 
than  bigness,  clean  and  well-paved  in  its 
streets,  honest  in  its  administration,  teem- 
ing with  a  happy  as  well  as  a  prosperous 
people,  and  something  to  be  proud  of  in 
the  type  of  its  citizenship  and  the  men 
who  bear  its  rule. 


205 


VICE 


A  few  years  ago  the  people  of  Chicago 
discovered  that  the  continuous  flow  of  the 
city  s  sewage  into  Lake  Michigan  was 
hopelessly  polluting  their  water  supply. 
With  characteristic  energy  and  darings  and 
at  a  cost  of  over  ten  millions  of  dollar s^  they 
dug  an  immense  ditch  westward  from  the 
city  and  reversed  the  flow  of  the  Chicago 
riverj  into  which  the  city's  sewers  empty. 
The  sewerage  is  thus  carried  into  the  Illinois 
river,  and  finally,  by  nature  s  ministry  of 
flowing  water,  disappears  entirely;  and  the 
water  supply  of  the  Great  Lakes  is  protected 
from  contamination. 

Such  a  work  is  needed  for  the  hearts  of 
men;  and  the  man  who  will  not  only  show 
to  the  sons  of  men  what  the  Pure  Life  is; 
hut  will,  by  a  more  than  Titanic  arm,  turn 
the  flow  of  man  s  nature  from  the  cesspools 
of  vice,  upward  to  the  fair  fields  of  virtue, 
is  rightly  deemed  the  Saviour  of  the  Race. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    PROBLEM    OF    VICE 

One  problem  of  our  series  remains. 
It  is  peculiar  neither  to  America  nor  the 
twentieth  century.  It  belongs  to  the  ages 
in  point  of  time  and  to  the  world  in  its 
locality.  It  has  branded  the  sons  of  every 
generation  with  its  mark,  and  has  smitten 
every  land  v/ith  its  blight.  It  is  the  old 
problem  of  Vice. 

It  finds  a  place  for  discussion  in  con- 
nection with  these  more  ephemeral  prob- 
lems for  several  reasons. 

First  of  all,  universal  and  ageless  as  it 
is,  the  problem  of  vice  confronts  the  men 

N  209 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

and  women  of  the  twentieth  century  in  a 
more  aggravated  form  than  it  has,  perhaps, 
ever  known  before.  Life  has  never  be- 
fore reached  such  intensity  as  it  has  to- 
day; and  this  has  brought  to  the  opening 
of  the  twentieth  century  not  only  the 
finest  types  of  manhood  and  womanhood, 
the  most  robust  virtue  and  saintHest 
sympathies,  but  also  the  deepest  degrada- 
tions and  intensest  forms  of  vice. 

Another  reason  is  to  be  found  in  the 
peculiar  sphere  of  this  problem.  It  is 
universal  in  its  influence  ultimately,  but 
primarily  it  concerns  the  individual.  Our 
age  is  intensely  individualistic.  The  dis- 
covery and  development  of  the  individual 
is  the  heart  passion  of  our  generation. 
All  history  of  the  past  and  all  forces  in 
the  present,  both  scientific  and  philosoph- 
ical, take  on  significance  and  worth 
with  us  to-day  because  of  the  place  which 

2IO 


VICE 

they  occupy  or  fail  to  occupy  in  the 
development  of  individual  character.  The 
problem  of  vice  vitally  concerns  this,  as 
does  no  other  problem  of  our  age. 

Yet  another  reason  for  the  discussion  of 
vice  in  this  connection  is  to  be  found  in 
its  bearing  on  these  other  problems. 
Not  only  does  it  make  an  atmosphere  in 
which  these  other  troubles  grow  in  aggra- 
vation and  intensity,  but  it  furnishes  in 
the  individuals  of  our  social  order  a  deadly 
toxin  which  is  ever  breaking  out  in  forms 
of  injustice  and  personal  hatred.  Its 
presence  makes  it  needful  not  only  to 
show  a  wrong-doer  how  to  do  right;  but, 
what  is  often  infinitely  harder,  persuade 
him  to  give  up  wrong  and  do  right. 
Thus  existing  at  the  root  of  all  these 
other  problems,  from  that  of  our  dealing 
with  the  Negro  to  how  we  shall  handle 
the   Liquor  question,  it  not  only  deserves 

ZII 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

discussion  here  because  of  association;  but, 
as  we  may  see  in  the  course  of  its  consid- 
eration, any  dealing  with  these  other 
problems  which  does  not  at  the  same  time 
seek  a  full  solution  of  this  underlying 
problem  of  vice  will  be  but  temporizing 
with  the  others. 

THE  VITAL  QUESTION 

The  problem  of  vice  is,  after  ail,  the 
vital  question.  It  is  the  supreme  question 
with  the  statesman,  who  is  ever  finding 
himself  opposed  and  thwarted  by  vicious 
men  from  realizing  his  dreams  of  the  ideal 
state.  It  is  the  dark  riddle  for  the  phil- 
anthropist and  reformer,  for  the  persistent 
and  pernicious  activity  of  moral  evil  in  the 
human  race  is  his  despair.  The  educator 
finds  it  an  insuperable  barrier,  for  he  is  ever 
seeing  vicious  minds  barricade  themselves 
against  the  angels  of  knowledge;  and  to 
the  preacher  of  righteousness,  vice  is  the 

2IZ 


VICE 

arch-fiend  in  human  form,  the  satanic  pro- 
tagonist with  whom  he  wrestles  for  the 
souls  of  men.  With  even  the  most  selfish 
of  men,  vice  is  the  supreme  question;  for 
vice  means  reflexive  evil  and  is  the  foe  of 
his  own  self-interest. 

THE  MYSTERY  OF  EVIL 

The  relation  of  the  divine  will  to  the 
presence  of  moral  evil  in  the  universe 
has  always  been  to  the  human  mind  an  in- 
soluble mystery.  Why  a  sovereign  and 
almighty  God  allowed  evil  to  enter  his 
world,  or  having  let  it  enter  allows 
it  to  remain  and  work  such  hurt  to  His 
children,  is  a  question  which  still  waits  for 
a  satisfactory  answer. 

Still  we  are  beginning  to  see  something 
of  the  mission  of  evil  in  the  world.  We 
may  still  doubt  whether  the  presence  of 
moral  evil  is  necessary  under  our  present 
order  to  change  innocence  into  righteous- 
213 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

ness,  but  it  is  certain  that  such  a  result  is 
being  accomphshed  in  this  way  before  our 
very  eyes;  and  neither  experience  nor 
philosophy  can  tell  us  of  any  other  way  to 
grow  strength  of  character  and  voluntary 
choice  of  the  good  save  under  the  stress 
of  temptation  to  choose  the  wrong.  But 
a  still  different  question  is  before  us 
here.  It  is  the  question  of  why  a  man  in 
the  enjoyment  of  his  freedom  of  choice 
will  yield  to  the  craving  of  an  appetite  and 
will  do  a  thing  which  will  hurt  himself. 

SIN,   CRIME,  VICE 

A  wrong  act  viewed  from  the  stand- 
point of  God  is  a  sin.  The  biblical  ac- 
count of  its  origin  attributes  it  to  self-will, 
and  characterizes  it  as  disobedience  against 
God. 

A  wrong  act  considered  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  state  is  a  crime.  The  causes 
of  crime  are  manifold.  A  prominent  prose- 
214 


VICE 

cuting  attorney  in  one  of  our  largest 
cities  recently  gave,  out  of  his  wide  ex- 
perience, the  following  as,  in  his  opinion, 
the  chief  causes  of  crime:  Foreign  popu- 
lation, poverty,  the  saloon,  heredity,  lack 
of  parental  control.  These  present  a  most 
attractive  field  to  the  reformer  and  philan- 
thropist; and  it  is  doubtless  with  these 
phases  of  the  question  that  the  public  is 
most  deeply  interested,  and  that  most  ef- 
forts to  meet  the  influence  of  evil  are 
exerted. 

But  we  must  go  yet  deeper  if  we  would 
get  at  the  real  root  of  wrongdoing.  Awrong 
act  considered  from  the  standpoint  of  him 
who  does  it  is  a  vice,  a  self-hurtful  act. 
Here  we  are  to  find  the  real  causes  of 
evil,  in  the  personality  of  the  man  who 
commits  it.  Not  only  is  vice  the  root  of 
all  other  wrong,  but  it  is,  as  a  class,  com- 
prehensive of  the  rest.  All  vice  is  sin,  for 
215 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

every  hurt  which  man  gives  to  his  own 
high  form  is  an  injury  to  the  handiwork  of 
God;  and  "he  who  sinneth  against  God 
wrongeth  his  own  soul."  While  the  state 
does  not  take  cognizance  of  all  vice  as  a 
crime  against  the  body  politic,  it  being 
recognized  that  there  are  some  vices  whose 
hurts  are  so  self-circumscribed  that  the 
state  should  take  no  account  of  them  on 
the  ground  of  personal  liberty;  it  must  be 
confessed  that  all  crime  is  vice,  for  he  who 
hurts  his  body  politic  hurts  also  himself 

THE    CAUSES    OF    VICE 

The  task  before  us  then  is  to  ask  first. 
What  are  the  causes  that  persuade  a  man  to 
the  moral  suicide  of  a  vicious  life  ?  Vice 
has  three  causes,  each  of  which  has  had  its 
sponsor  in  the  great  triad  of  Greek  philos- 
ophers. 


216 


VICE 
THE    HUMAN    ANIMAL 

The  first  cause  to  be  mentioned  is  the 
predominance  in  us  of  the  animal.  Men 
differ  to-day  materially  in  their  opinions 
about  our  animal  origin.  We  may  believe 
that  our  bodies  had  their  origin  in  a  divine 
creative  act  as  sudden  as  that  which 
breathed  into  these  bodies  a  living  soul ; 
or  we  may  believe  that  both  souls  and 
bodies  came  into  existence  through  long 
processes  of  development  from  lower  or- 
ders. We  may  differ  widely  about  the 
moral  qualities  of  these  bodies  at  that  par- 
ticular time  when  they  became  the  habita- 
tion of  human  souls.  But  all  of  us  will 
agree  that  about  the  average  man  of  to- 
day, whether  it  survives  as  a  part  of  his 
past  animal  existence  or  is  the  result  of  his 
"  fall "  in  Eden,  there  is  a  large  per  cent, 
of  the  animal.  Just  as  a  foreigner  brings 
with  him  to  our  shores,  in  his  dress  and 
217 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

speech  and  social  customs  and  even  the 
furniture  of  his  house,  as  well  as  in  his  folk- 
lore and  religion,  relics  and  characteristics 
of  his  former  life;  so  man  has  brought 
even  to  the  doorway  of  twentieth  century 
culture  and  civilization  survivals  of  the 
animal,  what  the  apostle  calls  "  the  old 
man,  who  is  corrupt  according  to  his  de- 
ceitful lusts."  We  find  on  the  human 
skeleton  to-day  such  bones  as  in  the  lower 
animals  have  attached  to  them  the  muscles 
which  erect  the  ears  and  wag  the  tail. 
Some  skilled  youthful  practitioners  have 
even  been  known  to  develop  and  use  the 
muscles  connected  with  the  ears.  And  of 
deeper  moment,  we  carry  in  our  bodies 
survivals  of  the  old  animal  appetites. 

Now,  in  the  exercise  and  abuse  of  these 

animal  appetites,  we  find  one  of  the  most 

fruitful  causes  of  vice,  indulging  them  till 

they  become  perverted  and  gross,  and  at 

218 


VICE 

last  remorseless  tyrants  who  enslave  their 
poor  victims  in  the  foulest  of  pits.  We 
feed  to  the  point  of  gluttonness  and  drink 
to  the  depths  of  drunkenness.  We  take 
to  stimulants  and  opiates  which  even  an 
animal  will  not  touch,  and  indulge  our 
animal  appetites  till  we  have  outanimaled 
the  animal.  It  was  a  cutting  satire,  but 
too  true,  when  the  witty  Frenchman  said, 
"  Man  is  the  only  animal  who  eats  when 
he  is  not  hungry,  and  makes  love  at  all 
seasons." 

This  is  the  cause  of  vice  for  which  old 
Plato  stood  sponsor;  and  his  picture  of 
the  black  horse  of  Passion  and  the  white 
horse  of  Love  harnessed  to  the  chariot  of 
life,  with  Reason  as  the  charioteer,  is  not 
only  one  of  the  most  pathetic  but  one  of 
the  truest  pictures  of  human  experience. 
Happy  indeed  is  the  man,  and  rare,  who 
can    finish    the  race  of  life  with  Reason 

2  I  9 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

master  of  his  team,  and  the  good  white 
steed  unhurt  by  the  savage  teeth  and  iron- 
shod  hoofs  of  his  vicious  yoke-fellow. 

THE    IGNORANT    REASON 

The  second  cause  is  one  on  which  Plato's 
great  master,  wise  old  Socrates,  laid  his 
hand.  Standing  back  there  under  the 
shadow  of  heathen  temples  whose  very  acts 
of  worship  were  a  base  prostitution  of  their 
bodies,  surrounded  with  a  generation  of 
gay  devotees  of  sensual  pleasure,  whose 
very  pleasures  were  so  grossly  abusive  of 
even  the  animal  that  nature  made  them 
into  scourging  vices  for  their  punishment, 
the  old  philosopher's  heart  was  moved 
with  infinite  pity.  For  to  him  their  vices 
were  born  of  their  ignorant  reason.  They 
plucked  the  poisonous  flower  of  their  sen- 
sual appetites,  lay  down  under  the  deadly 
upas  tree  of  passion,  because  they  knew 
of  nothing  better.    They  had  never  caught 


VICE 

a  glimpse  of  the  higher  soul-life,  the  infi- 
nite calm  and  peace  and  joy  of  him  who 
has  mastered  the  animal  and  entered  into 
the  higher  life  of  the  soul. 

Most  of  us  have  seen  something  of  this, 
and  would  that  it  might  fill  the  hearts  of  all 
of  us  who  see  it  with  a  pity  as  profound  as 
that  of  Socrates.  The  ignorant  reason  is 
the  cause  of  so  much  vice.  The  young 
girl  who  was  seduced  through  the  wine- 
room  and  its  companionship  to  a  life  of 
shame  would  never  have  gone  from  her 
home  that  night  could  she  have  looked 
through  those  coming  years  of  vice  and 
seen  the  wretched,  heart-broken  outcast 
which  she  at  last  became.  The  tyrannical 
ruler  would  never  have  ground  his  iron 
heel  into  the  neck  of  his  people  could  he 
have  seen  the  culture  of  brutality  which  he 
was  working  in  his  own  nature  and  the 
awful  vengeance  which  a  nation  of  anarch- 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

ists,  of  his  own  making,  would  one  day- 
wreak  on  his  offspring  and  their  govern- 
ment. The  greed  for  gold,  till  honor 
and  honesty  have  been  sacrificed  to  get  it, 
and  all  domestic  joy  and  soul  culture 
hopelessly  foregone,  indulgence  in  strong 
drink  and  the  fascination  of  gambling  on 
stocks  or  horse-races, —  these  and  their 
like  would  have  little  fascination,  if  in 
some  way  the  reason  of  man  were  not 
blindfolded,  and  the  soul  shut  out  from 
the  exercise  of  its  faculties.  The  animal 
life  appeals  to  men  because  they  are  igno- 
rant of  the  sweeter  and  abiding  joys  of  the 
soul  life. 

THE    PERVERTED    WILL 

But  not  until  the  third  of  this  brilliant 
galaxy  of  Greek  philosophers  arose  was 
the  deep  root  of  vice  revealed.  That  was 
done  when  Aristotle  pointed  men  to  the 
perverted   human    will.     Brutality,   sheer 


VICE 

animalism  causes  much  vice;  an  ignorant 
reason  causes  more;  but  the  main  root  of 
the  trouble  is  in  man's  perversity.  Con- 
sider that,  the  mulish  element  in  man,  the 
wrong-doer's  resentfulness  of  authority, 
the  provocation  to  evil  by  merely  forbid- 
ding it;  for  here  we  find,  deep  seated  in 
the  wrong-doer  himself,  an  irrational  pro- 
pensity to  back  into  self-hurtful  vice  when 
the  voice  of  his  Maker,  the  law  of  his 
state,  and  his  own  self-interest  call  him 
away  from  it.  It  is  not  enough  to  dis- 
cover and  master  the  animal;  it  is  not 
enough  even  to  hold  it  in  subjection  and 
learn  to  find  one's  motives  and  aims  of 
existence  in  the  higher  sphere  of  the  soul- 
life;  to  master  viciousness,  the  very  bent 
of  one's  will  must  be  mastered  and  turned. 
The  current  of  the  stream  of  life  must  be 
reversed. 

Not  only  do  we  find  vice  resulting  from 

223 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

each  of  these  three  causes,  but  it  is  com- 
mon to  find  them  conspiring  to  produce 
a  vicious  character.  The  animal  appetites 
furnish  the  first  suggestion,  the  ignorant 
reason  prevents  the  disastrous  results  from 
being  seen,  the  full  significance  of  the  act 
from  being  known  at  its  inception,  and 
the  stubborn  perversity  of  the  will  leads 
to  persistence  in  the  vicious  course  even 
after  the  danger  signals  are  in  view. 

A  striking  instance  of  this  is  to  be 
found  in  Judas  Iscariot.  His  animal 
greed  for  gain  doubtless  led  him  into  the 
ranks  of  the  apostles  and  secured  the 
place  of  treasurer,  and  it  was  in  feeding 
this  greed  that  his  first  steps  in  wrong 
were  probably  taken.  His  ignorance  of 
who  Jesus  really  was  and  of  the  signifi- 
cance of  his  acts  both  in  their  bearing  on 
his  own  moral  character  and  on  the  career 
of  Jesus,  kept  him  from  seeing  things 
224 


VICE 

which  might  well  have  made  him  prefer 
an  earlier  suicide  to  such  a  career.  But 
his  moral  perversity  led  him  to  persist  in 
this  course  of  wrong  doing  even  in  the 
face  of  Christ's  warning  that  it  were  better 
had  he  never  been  born  than  to  do  it. 
Thus  they  united  to  make  of  an  intimate 
associate  of  even  Jesus  of  Nazareth  the 
moral  renegade  of  history;  and  the  experi- 
ence of  every  day  life  shows  thev  are  no 
less  deadly  to-day. 

Not  only  do  they  operate  thus  in  in- 
dividuals, but  one  of  the  most  alarming 
types,  because  so  ineradicable,  is  the  way 
in  which  these  forces  have  intrenched 
themselves  in  the  government  of  a  state 
and  the  customs  of  society,  and  even  in 
the  creeds  and  ceremonies  of  religion. 
There  they  fortify  themselves  behind 
man's  natural  conservatism  and  perpetuate 
wrong-doing  through  the  very  atmosphere 
o  225 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

of  youth  and  the  mother's  nurture  of  her 
child.  So  customs  and  governments, 
philosophical  systems  and  even  religions 
become  handmaidens  of  vice,  Delilahs  who 
soothe  to  moral  torpor  for  the  club  of  the 
Philistine  of  vice  those  whom  they  exist 
to  cherish  and  protect. 

THE    PAULINE    DIAGNOSIS 

This  is  the  diagnosis  of  vice  by  pagan- 
dom's most  gifted  philosophers.  They 
pointed  out  the  hurt  at  the  heart  of 
humanity,  and  laid  their  hand  on  its 
causes.  They  could  go  no  further.  They 
could  show,  but  could  in  no  wise  heal,  the 
hurt. 

It  may  be  worth  our  while,  at  this  point 
to  see  how  the  apostle  Paul  agrees  with 
their  diagnosis.  To  heal  the  hurt  was 
the  passion  of  his  life,  and  if  we  will  turn 
to  his  words,  we  shall  find  both  how 
thoroughly  he  had  studied  the  matter  and 

2Z6 


VICE 

how  fully  he  agreed  with  the  Greek  phil- 
osophers as  to  its  causes. 

We  shall  find  some  very  significant 
words  in  this  connection  in  his  epistle  to 
the  Ephesians.  It  is  his  exhortation  to 
men  to  give  up  the  vicious  and  lead  a 
virtuous  life. 

"That  ye  put  off  concerning  the  former 
conversation  the  old  man,  who  is  corrupt 
according  to  the  deceitful  lusts;  and  be 
renewed  in  the  spirit  of  your  mind;  and 
that  ye  put  on  the  new  man,  which  after 
God  is  created  in  righteousness  and  true 
holiness."^ 

The  "old  man"  of  Paul  is  the  "animal" 
of  Plato;  the  "deceitful  lusts"  are  the  "ig- 
norant reason"  of  Socrates;  and  the  former 
conversation  of  the  old  man  who  is  "cor- 
rupt" is  the  perverted  will  of  Aristotle. 

Brutality,  ignorance,  perversity  of  will — 

*  £ph.  4  :  22-24. 

227 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

these  are  the  forces  that  make  men  de- 
grade their  own  highborn  manhood,  till  it  is 
baser  than  the  animal,  and  turn  what  God 
meant  for  an  Eden  of  joy  and  love  into  a 
bear-pit,  where  men  devour  each  other. 
So  that  picture  of  the  mob,  which  crucified 
Jesus  and  set  loose  Barabbas,  becomes 
a  miniature  of  all  history. 

CAN  VICE  BE  CURED? 

If  these  be  the  causes  of  vice,  is  it  pos- 
sible to  cure  it?  The  desire  for  moral 
betterment  has  never  been  absolutely  dead 
in  the  human  race.  Even  in  the  days  of 
man's  deepest  degradation,  when  moral 
darkness  was  over  all  the  earth,  when 
women  were  base  and  men  were  glad  to 
have  them  so,  noble  men  and  women  have 
arisen  and  called  on  the  race  to  leave  the 
dens  of  vice  and  seek  a  destiny  worthy  of 
their  endowment;  but  the  generations  had 
ever  a  way  of  forgetting  their  forefathers' 
228 


VICE 

virtues  and  refining  on  their  vices,  till 
much  of  the  race  even  to-day  has  grown 
cynical,  and  their  thought  about  the  prob- 
lem of  vice  is  a  little  more  hopeful  than 
the  words  of  Pope: 

"  Vice  is  a  monster  of  so  frightful  mien, 
As,  to  be  hated,  needs  but  to  be  seen  ; 
Yet  seen  too  oft,  familiar  with  her  face, 
We  first  endure,  then  pity,  then  embrace.  " 

Despite  all  this,  vice,  even  in  its  deepest, 
most  hurtful  form  can  be  cured,  has  been 
cured.     But  how? 

The  weakest  of  all  ways  to  cure  vice  is 
to  deny  its  reality,  to  look  on  it  as  only  a 
lower  stage  in  the  natural  development  of 
the  individual,  a  condition  which  should 
be  and  will  be  outgrown  with  the  passing 
years  and  the  natural  evolution  of  our 
social  order.  While  from  one  point  of 
view  it  is  to  be  deplored,  the  victim  of  it 
is  in  no  sense  to  be  personally  censured, 
much  less  punished.  No  more  blame 
229 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

should  attach  to  it  than  to  the  savage  for 
his  ignorance  of  the  classics  or  to  the  lion 
for  his  appetite  for  raw  meat.  It  is  simply 
a  natural  condition  which  he  must,  by  a 
gradual  transformation  or  uplifting  of 
tastes,  be  led  to  outgrow. 

This  view  of  vice  is  both  pernicious  and 
false.  Its  falsehood  is  shown  by  the  re- 
peated cases  of  degeneracy  into  vicious- 
ness  which  we  find  not  only  in  a  cultured 
and  educated  generation,  but  even  among 
the  children  of  cultured  and  virtuous  par- 
ents. It  is  pernicious  because  it  ignores  a 
deadly  malady  which  should  have  imme- 
diate and  drastic  treatment. 

Another  futile  method  is  that  which 
Lyman  Beecher  favored  for  the  treatment 
of  heretics, — give  vice  plenty  of  rope  and 
let  it  hang  itself.  Give  vice  enough  license, 
it  is  claimed,  and  it  will  destroy  itself.  In 
one  sense,  this  is  true.  Vice  does  possess 
230 


VICE 

a  self-destroying  power  for  the  individual. 
The  vicious  soul  shall  die  is  only  another 
way  of  putting  the  scriptural  statement, 
"  The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die."  It 
is  one  of  nature's  remorseless  laws  that  the 
man  who  yields  to  vice  destroys  himself. 
Vice  is  an  automatic  executioner. 

But  in  proposing  this  as  a  remedy  for 
vice  in  the  world,  we  are  losing  sight  of 
the  fresh  material  on  which  vice  seizes. 
While  the  victim  of  vice  is  destroying 
himself,  he  influences  often  a  company  of 
fresh  victims  to  take  up  the  same  career. 
The  vagabond  tramp  who  takes  to  a  life 
of  wandering  vagrancy  and  drunkenness 
will  not  curse  the  world  with  much  of  an 
offspring,  but  he  will,  perhaps,  teach  a 
dozen  or  more  of  the  children  of  others  to 
enter  this  vicious  life.  The  same  is  true 
with  the  prostitute  and  gambler  and  often 
with  the  drunkard. 

231 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  cases 
where  the  victims  of  vice  are  multiplied 
by  direct  generation.  There  is  a  case  on 
record  in  this  country,  in  which  among 
the  offspring  of  one  vagabond  prostitute 
in  New  York,  nearly  one  hundred  vicious 
criminals  have  developed. 

Putting  these  things  and  their  like  to- 
gether, self-extinction  is  no  more  effective 
for  vice  than  it  is  for  smallpox  and  yellow 
fever. 

REPRESSIVE    LEGISLATION 

The  cure  to  which  most  of  us  are  prone 
to  turn  is  repressive  legislation.  Lions 
had  best  be  caged,  or  when  that  is  impos- 
sible, killed;  and  vicious  men  had  best  be 
intimidated  with  the  penalty  of  prohibi- 
tory law,  and  this  failing  to  make  them 
virtuous,  they  had  best  be  put  behind  the 
bars  or  locked  up  in  reformatories.  With- 
out doubt,  a  vast  amount  of  good  is  to  be 
232 


VICE 

accomplished  by  repressive  legislation,  as 
courts  of  justice  and  penal  institutions 
throughout  the  history  of  civilization  bear 
witness;  and  the  faith  of  men  in  their 
effectiveness  is  attested  by  the  vast  amounts 
of  money  which  are  spent  on  them.  Now 
and  then  a  man  arises  and  denounces  the 
legal  prevention  of  vice  and  crime.  "  You 
cannot  make  men  virtuous  by  law,"  they 
cry;  "and  all  your  efforts  at  it  provoke  the 
vicious  to  be  worse.  If  men  will  gamble 
and  drink  and  women  will  be  immoral, 
give  them  license  to  do  it;  for  the  enact- 
ment of  law  against  it  will  but  add  the 
crime  of  law-breaking  to  their  career  of 
vice."  But  experience  shows  that  repres- 
sive legislation  does  repress.  It  is  only 
external  treatment  for  an  internal  malady, 
it  is  true ;  but  wherever  the  majority  of 
men  and  women  in  a  community  are  de- 
termined on  a  righteous  code  and  a  virtu- 
233 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

ous  social  order,  the  arm  of  the  law  Is 
mighty  to  close  the  haunts  of  vice  and  at 
least  drive  into  obscurity  the  persistently 
vicious. 

You  can  repress;  but  repression  does 
not  cure.  It  stanches  the  flow,  but  does 
not  cure  the  wound. 

educate! 

The  favorite  method  with  another  most 
respected  clement  looks  on  it  as  purely  an 
educational  problem.  They  emphasize 
the  ignorant  reason  as  its  cause,  and  ap- 
peal to  man's  tendency  to  self-preserva- 
tion. Show  a  man  that  vice  is  self-hurtful 
and  he  will  avoid  it  as  a  burnt  child  will 
avoid  fire.  Let  the  great  teacher  open  up 
to  them  the  realms  of  thought  and  imagi- 
nation, the  kingdoms  of  mind  and  soul 
culture,  introduce  them  to  the  fair  lands 
of  human  well-being,  where  the  deadly 
marshes  of  vice  and  the  thorn  bushes  of 
234 


VICE 

passion  are  left  behind,  where  fountains 
break  forth  for  the  cure  of  the  body's  ills, 
and  the  sweet  pure  air  of  life  blows  on 
their  faces  from  the  Gardens  of  Immortal- 
ity, where  the  soul  learns  to  love  and 
aspire  as  the  mind  grows  the  wings  of 
mighty  thought,  where  they  company  with 
the  great  and  good  of  all  ages,  where  life 
throbs  in  a  work  which  never  tires  or  fails 
to  fruit  and  the  soul  is  happy  in  a  love 
whose  growing  pains  are  the  bliss  of  exist- 
ence; and  it  will  be  easy  to  leave  vice  be- 
hind. Show  men  the  soul-life  of  which 
old  Socrates  spoke  to  the  Greeks,  and  they 
will  be  glad  to  give  up  the  animal  life. 

All  this  looks  rational,  and  so  it  is ;  but 
vice  is  irrational.  The  ignorant  reason  is 
but  one  of  its  causes.  Experience  shows 
that  education  has  not  solved  the  prob- 
lem, and  points  to  the  conclusion  that  it 
never  will.  It  creates  an  atmosphere 
235 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

which  moves  mightily  against  vice,  but  the 
malady  calls  for  more  than  an  atmosphere. 
One  of  the  most  deplorable  things  about 
our  problem  is  the  large  percentage  of  the 
victims  of  vice  which  come  from  the 
ranks  of  the  educated.  The  prevalence  of 
gambling  and  drunkenness  among  certain 
classes  of  the  educated  and  cultured,  the 
thievery  to  which  many  a  man  resorts  in 
business,  the  immorality  and  drunkenness 
of  even  not  a  few  college  graduates,  musi- 
cians, poets,  and  scientific  men, — all  these, 
instances  of  which  abound  in  the  acquaint- 
ance of  all,  show  that  the  cure  of  vice  calls 
for  more  than  the  enlightenment  of  man's 
ignorant  reason. 

THE    CURE    OF    VICE 

The  cure   of  vice  will  not  be  found  till 

we  get  something  that  will  go  to  the  root 

of  the  trouble,  the  perverted  human  will. 

The   only   thorough-going  cure  for    vice 

236 


VICE 

which  the  world  has  ever  seen  is  the 
remedy  proposed  and  used  so  successfully 
by  the  Apostle  Paul.  Old  Socrates  tried 
to  win  the  Greeks  away  from  vice  with 
pictures  of  the  higher  soul-life,  but  his 
countrymen  made  the  great  philosopher 
drink  the  poison  hemlock  for  "corrupting 
their  youth."  The  Apostle  Paul  went 
among  them  with  a  message  which  not 
only  won  them  from  vice,  but  captured 
and  cleansed  their  very  language  as  the 
voice  through  which  this  cure  was  to  speak 
to  the  coming  ages.  This  Jew  of  Tarsus 
had  looked  on  vice  in  its  most  degrading 
forms;  his  mind  had  been  opened  to  see 
the  wounds  which  the  claws  of  the  animal 
made  in  the  high  form  of  man;  and  with 
all  the  passion  of  a  great  soul  he  had  set 
about  the  mastery  of  the  brute.  He  went 
into  the  arena  and  fought  out  the  battle 
in  his  own  experience.  He  tried  repres- 
237 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

sion  of  the  animal,  and  became  a  Pharisee 
of  the  Pharisees  in  his  ardor  for  legalism. 
He  tried  enlightening  the  ignorant  reason, 
and  became  a  Greek  in  learning  and  cul- 
ture. And  yet,  after  sitting  at  the  feet  of 
Gamaliel  for  law  and  companioning  with 
Greek  philosophers  for  truth  and  culture, 
we  still  find  him  saying,  "Wo  is  me! 
The  good  which  I  would,  that  I  do  not, 
and  the  evil  which  I  would  not,  that  I  do! 
Who  shall  deliver  me  from  the  body  of 
this  death?"  The  answer  came  to  him, 
he  tells  us,  on  the  road  to  Damascus, 
where  he  learned  to  yield  the  control  of 
his  perverted  will  to  Jesus  Christ.  The 
Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  is  the  only  hope 
for  the  victims  of  vice. 

THE    METHOD    OF    THE    CURE 

Let  us   see    how   the  cure  is  effected. 
We  have  seen   that  vice  is  due  to  three 
causes,  the  animal   in  man,  the  ignorant 
238 


VICE 

reason,  and  the  perverted  will.  How  are 
these  causes  reached? 

The  death  of  the  animal  is  "the  putting 
off  of  the  old  man;"  the  ignorant  reason 
is  enligtened  by  his  being  "renewed  in  the 
spirit  of  his  mind;"  and  the  perverted  will 
is  righted  by  "putting  on  the  new  man."* 

This  is  what  the  Apostle  calls  "learning 
the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus."  The  accept- 
ance of  Christ  as  a  Saviour  brings  these 
three  things: 

1.  The  change  of  one's  nature,  the 
new  heart,  in  which  animal  desires  are  in 
some  cases  at  once  and  in  others  gradually 
destroyed. 

2.  The  enlightenment  of  the  mind  by 
the  Spirit  of  Christ,  by  which  one  becomes 
"spiritually-minded,"  able  to  see  what 
things  are  "pure  and  lovely  and  without 
reproach." 

•  Cf.  Eph.  4:22-24. 

239 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

3.  The  enthronement  of  the  will  of 
Jesus  as  the  law  of  all  life.  This  takes 
the  will  captive,  willingly,  let  us  remem- 
ber, through  the  change  of  nature  which 
is  wrought  in  the  new  birth,  and  turns  the 
current  of  life  toward  virtue  and  away 
from  vice. 

This,  of  course,  is  simply  the  old  mes- 
sage of  the  Gospel;  and  the  moment  it  is 
announced  as  our  boasted  claim  for  vice, 
impatience  and  cynicism  may  come  over 
the  reader.  "Have  not  preachers  and 
church-members  and  even  one  of  Jesus' 
own  apostles  turned  out  to  be  vicious 
characters?  How  can  the  Gospel,  in  the 
face  of  this,  which  adds  hypocrisy  to  fail- 
ure, be  lauded  as  a  cure  for  vice?" 

These  cases,    however  numerous    they 

might  be,  do  not  offset  the  claim.     The 

Gospel  of  Jesus  is  not  to  be  blamed  for 

failure  where  it  has  not  been  tried.     The 

240 


VICE 

hypocrite  in  Christianity  is  the  man  who 
makes  a  pretence  at  using  the  Gospel  of 
Christ  to  cure  his  vice.  It  is  really  a  mere 
cloak  with  which  to  cover  his  indulgence  in 
it.  An  honest  trial  of  the  Gospel  is  some- 
thing which  he  did  not  even  attempt.  For 
these  failures  we  are  not  to  blame  the 
Gospel,  but  that  vicious  nature  in  man 
which  adds  hypocrisy  to  his  other  vices. 

The  efficiency  of  the  Man  of  Nazareth 
to  cure  vice  has  been  attested  throughout 
the  ages  since  he  walked  among  men.  The 
witnesses  that  rise  up  and  call  Him 
"blessed"  for  delivering  them  from  this 
"man  of  hell"  are  countless  and  irrefut-. 
able,  from  the  Apostle  Paul  and  the  im- 
petuous "Son  of  Thunder"  to  Jere  Mc- 
Auley  and  "Billy"  Sunday.  The  great- 
est blunder  of  our  age  is  our  ignoring  his 
matchless  work.  He  is  the  specialist  of 
vice;  and  this  suffering  race  of  self-hurt 
p  241 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

men  and  women  is  waiting  for  a  generation 
of  apostles  and  reformers  who  will  point 
their  blood-shot  eyes  to  Jesus  as  their  De- 
liverer, and  put  on  their  fever-smitten  lips 
the  song  of  Moses  and  the  Lamb. 

We  stand  on  this  black,  seething  cess- 
pool of  the  world's  vice,  sickened  with  the 
stench,  heart  broken  as  we  see  loved  ones 
slipping  into  its  insatiable  muck  and  laugh- 
ing at  our  warning  cries  as  they  elude  the 
friendly  grasp  that  would  hold  them  back; 
and  we  grow  frantic  with  the  pain  or  cal- 
lous under  it.  How  can  this  foul  and 
greedy  pit  of  sin  and  crime  and  vice  be 
blotted  from  our  earth,  and  the  sons  and 
daughters  of  our  race  be  saved  from  its 
blight? 

The  gift  of  God's  Son  is  God's  answer; 
and  every  man  of  the  countless  millions 
whom  He  has  saved  is  God's  commenda- 
tion of  it  to  us.  This  is  God's  way,  and 
242 


VICE 

it  works.  May  we  give  it  full  sway  in  our 
own  lives,  and  with  an  earnestness  born 
of  our  own  experience,  God  help  us  to 
press  it  lovingly  home  on  men.  Thus, 
and  thus  alone,  can  we  hasten  that  great 
day,  pictured  by  prophet,  sung  of  by  poet, 
and  hungered  for  by  a  suffering  world, 
when  they  shall  no  longer  hurt  nor  destroy 
in  all  God's  holy  mountain,  when  the  na- 
tions shall  not  learn  war  any  more,  when 
the  sucking  child  can  play  on  the  hole  of 
the  asp,  because  the  knowledge  of  the  Lord 
has  filled  the  whole  earth,  and  every  tongue 
confesses  and  every  heart  possesses  Jesus 
Christ  as  Lord. 


243 


THE    DOUBLE    NEED 


God  give  us  men !     A  time  like  this  de- 
mands 
Strong  minds,  great  hearts,  true  faith  and 

ready  hands ; 
Men  whom  the  lust  of  office  does  not  kill; 

Men  whom  the  spoils  of  office  cannot  buy; 
Men  who  possess  opinions  and  a  will; 
Men  who  have  honor;  men  who  will 
not  lie ; 
Men  who  can  stand  before  a  demagogue 
And  damn    his   treacherons    flatteries 
without  winking; 
Tall  men,  sun-crowned,  who  live  above  the 

M 
In  public  duty  and  in  private  thinking. 
For  while  the  rabble  with  their  thumb- 
worn  creeds, 
'Their  large  profession  and  their  little  deeds. 
Mingle  in  selfish  strife,  lo  !  Freedom  weeps. 
Wrong  rules  the  land,  and  waiting  Justice 

sleeps.'^ 

J.  G.  Holland. 


CHAPTER  VI 


THE     DOUBLE    NEED 


To  THE  reader  who  has  patiently  fol- 
lowed this  consideration  of  America's 
present-day  problems,  one  thing  must 
have  been  apparent, — that  the  writer  has 
been  attempting  to  study  and  solve  them 
from  what  may  be  called  the  Christian 
point  of  view.  Whatever  may  be  our  at- 
titude towards  Christ  himself,  one  fact 
stands  in  need  of  no  further  proof, — the 
beneficent  influences  which  have  always 
attended  the  rule  of  Christianity  in  the 
state  and  social  life  of  a  nation.  Progress 
and  culture,  virtue  and  liberty  have  been 
247 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

measured  by  the  extent  to  which  the  life 
of  Jesus  has  furnished  the  example  for  the 
individual  and  his  teachings  have  been 
made  the  rule  of  the  social  order.  If  one 
will  take  a  map  of  the  world  and  mark 
the  stages  of  culture  and  influence  for 
progress  and  well-being  of  the  different 
nations  by  shadings  of  color,  it  will  be 
found  that  these  shadings  will  exactly  cor- 
respond to  the  place  which  the  rule  of 
Christ  has  in  the  lives  of  their  peoples. 
The  kingdom  of  God,  which  Jesus  came 
to  found,  and  of  which  he  proved  himself 
the  worthy  King  by  first  showing  himself 
to  be  the  ideal  citizen,  is  a  perfect  social 
order,  in  which  all  problems  are  solved. 
The  application  of  these  principles  to  the 
problems  that  to-day  confront  us  is  the 
only  hope  of  salvation  for  our  nation. 
Neither  our  free  institutions  nor  our  ma- 
terial resources  can  atone  for  degeneration 


THE  DOUBLE  NEED 

of  the  individual.  When  patriotism  is 
honeycombed  with  commerciahsm,  when 
greed  fattens  on  the  hunger  and  poverty 
of  the  common  people,  and  those  who 
could  prevent  it  let  it  be  so,  when  the 
statesman  has  become  but  a  politician  and 
the  prophet  a  dreamer,  the  day  of  our  un- 
doing is  not  far  away.  The  strength  of  a 
nation  is  the  average  of  its  citizenship ;  no 
more. 

The  great  need  in  all  of  these  problems, 
whether  it  be  the  redemption  of  the  black 
man  or  the  cleansing  of  the  city,  is  the 
transformation  of  the  individual.  This  is 
the  work  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  of  him 
alone. 

The  making  of  the  perfect  man  has 
waited  for  two  things.  One  of  them  is 
vision  and  the  other  is  power.  To  see 
the  good  has  been  possible  to  a  pagan,  to 
Socrates  and  to  Confucius,  to  Laotsze  and 
249 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

the  Buddha;  but  here  the  best  of  them 
had  to  stop.  To  get  both  the  desire  and 
the  power  to  achieve  the  good,  only  the 
risen  Christ  has  ever  been  able  to  breathe 
this  into  men. 

No  path  to  the  best  is  easy,  but  we 
have  gone  far  afield  from  the  straight  and 
narrow  way  by  making  little  of  Jesus,  the 
King  of  Kings.  "I  can  do  all  things 
through  Christ,  who  strengtheneth  me" 
is  the  glad  cry  of  a  man  whose  ambition 
for  the  best  was  ever  being  baffled  till  he 
received  into  his  individual  life  the  rule  of 
the  personal  Christ;  and,  "Ye  are  com- 
plete in  him,"  is  the  message  which  this 
great  Apostle,  who,  "being  dead,  yet 
speaketh,"  is  sounding  in  the  ears  of  our 
nation  to-day. 

The    solution    of  America's    problems 
waits  on  a  generation  of  men  who  will  sit 
at  the  feet  of  Jesus  till  they  see  the  vision 
250 


THE  DOUBLE  NEED 

of  His  kingdom,  and  who  will  then  go 
forth  and  in  His  Spirit  and  by  His  power 
realize  the  vision. 

In  view  of  these  things,  the  writer  has 
no  apology  to  make  for  preaching  Jesus 
Christ  and  His  rule  for  the  solution  of 
America's  problems.  He  is  still  "foolish- 
ness" to  many  who  think  that  "they  are 
the  people  and  wisdom  will  die  with 
them,"  as  he  was  with  people  of  this 
type  of  old;  and  He  is  still  a  "stum- 
bhng  block"  to  some  who  are  wedded 
to  a  way  of  their  own  making,  as  He 
has  been  in  time  past;  but  to  everyone 
that  believeth,  whether  individual  or  na- 
tion, Jesus  is  still  "the  power  of  God 
unto  salvation." 

The    "fatherhood    of    God"   and    the 

"brotherhood  of  man"  stand  for  the  two 

most  precious  possessions  of  our  race,  but 

both  of  them  are  empty  bombast  or  ex- 

251 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

ecrable  subterfuges  without  the  "saviour- 
hood  of  Jesus." 

He  came  unto  his  own,  and  his  own 
received  him  not;  but  as  many  as  re- 
ceived him,  to  them  gave  he  power 
to  become  the  sons  of  god. 


252 


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